


Courting Disaster

by Ericobard, shadows59



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Always Count on Grandpa, Blinded by the Cute, F/M, Gwen Doesn't Share, No proofreading we die like mne, Not All Magic Comes From Spellbooks, Not Little Moments Compliant, Parents in Denial, Separation Not Advised, So fluffy you'll die, Talking is important, The Moms Don't Screw It Up, kissing cousins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2020-05-01 17:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericobard/pseuds/Ericobard, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadows59/pseuds/shadows59
Summary: In a different reality, Ben and Gwen aren't separated and sent to different schools, their mothers don't ruin things, and things are generally better all around. Except for all of the adults who are around the two and slowly begin to realize that there's no stopping the chain reaction going on. They're Ben and Gwen, and the world can just deal with it. Welcome...To Courting Disaster.





	1. Prologue: The Kids Stay Together

**_COURTING DISASTER_ **

By Shadows59 and Eric “Erico” Lawson

* * *

 

**Prologue: The Kids Stay Together**

By Eric “Erico” Lawson

 

_Gwen’s House_

_Bellwood, California_

_June 20th, 1992 C.E._

_1:42 P.M._

 

Sandra and Natalie Tennyson didn’t always see eye to eye about things, especially when it came to worrying about their children. They had been fortunate enough to fall in love with the Tennyson brothers, and unfortunate enough to get to know and form a bond with their future mother-in-law before Verdona died in the fire that burned down her house. For a time, grief and the mutual panic about their pregnancies and the loathing both women had for their own families had kept them united. And Ben and Gwen had been such wonderful babies, and being able to rely on each other early on had been a godsend.

But then Frank had started earning more money, and the two families had bought houses on opposite sides of town. What had once been constant visits slowly dwindled, because it just got harder and harder to listen to Lili as the kids got older. It was like she’d forgotten all the promises they made to each other. That she’d forgotten everything she hated about her mother, who reminded Sandra too much of her _own_ mother, and started emulating them.

Really, if it wasn’t for Ben and Gwen…

 

But here she was, sitting in Lili’s kitchen and drinking coffee while her darling Ben was upstairs playing with his cousin. Who had chicken pox. Admittedly, it was a solid idea that she agreed with; getting chicken pox now before school started was preferable. And the kids loved playing together. Always had. Although...they were noticing now. They’d both stopped at the bottom of the stairs, holding hands, and had stared at them, at their mothers, waiting for her and Lili to start fighting and cut the visit short.

That had been thirty minutes ago and she still couldn’t shake the look she’d seen on her son’s face. Gwen had worn one just like it. Sandra figured even Lili had seen it...she’d been quieter than usual. Or maybe she was reading too much into it, and Lili just figured that silence was better than speaking, which inevitably led to an argument.

And the kids _knew it._

“School will be starting soon.” Lili mused softly, refilling her cup. She held up the pot expectantly, and Sandra nudged her cup and saucer over for her to refill it also. “We’ll be enrolling Gwendolyn into kindergarten this year. Have you thought about sending Ben to kindergarten also?”

“I’m still not convinced it’s a good idea to have them in a year early.” Sandra confessed. She wrapped her hands around the coffee cup and let the heat leech into her palms. “They’re only four and a half. Other kids going into kindergarten are _six._ Maybe five.”

“They’re _smart_ , Sandy.” Lili insisted. “You should see them with the flash cards and the games. I knew Gwen could handle them, and Ben keeps up with her every step of the way.”

“But, DeMornay’s book says…” Sandra started, and froze when she saw Lili start to scowl. She shook her head. “No, forget that.” And Lili calmed down, just a hair. “I want Ben to succeed, Lili. I want that as much as you do. But I want him to be _happy_ doing it.”

“And you think…” Lili started again with a growl, but stopped herself. She closed her eyes and counted silently. Sandra did the same.

Maybe in another time, another place, she wouldn’t have seen anything that would make her worry. Maybe if she’d been less observant, Sandra would have completely missed how the kids just stood there and _waited_ for the fight to happen.

But this was not that time or place, and she had seen them waiting to be pulled apart. So she took in a breath, worked up her courage…

_Do it for them._

 

“Why are we always fighting, Lili?” Sandra asked sadly. She opened her eyes and looked over to _that woman_ , expecting indignation.

She saw surprise instead. Sandra didn’t wait for it to disappear. “Did you see how Ben and Gwen _looked at us_ before you told them to go upstairs and play?”

Lili might have tried to say something, but she settled for a rough nod, and looked down at the table.

“They were _expecting_ us to start fighting. Not more than a minute after we’d gotten here, and…” Sandra’s voice broke. “The last time at our house? You remember what happened?”

“The lights went crazy, didn’t they?”

“No...well, yes. I guess it would be the time before that. You and I got into another argument, and you went upstairs to take Gwen home?”

Lili flinched a bit. “They were in his closet.”

“Covering each other’s ears.” Sandra remembered sadly.

They both took a long sip of coffee after that, drinking little but making it last.

“I wonder what Verdona would think of us.” Lili said, after their cups came back down again. Sandra had to laugh at the notion.

“She’d probably smack us both and then sit us down until we made up.” She confessed.

Lili chuckled and ran a fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. “She would. But we’d get cookies out of it.”

“...She made the best sugar cookies.” Sandra sighed. “Always said the secret ingredient was love.” She met Lili’s eyes again. “She would have loved Gwen and Ben.”

“She would have spoiled them rotten.” Lili complained, and the two laughed a little at that before sobering up. For Sandra, the pain was still too fresh. They’d visited her grave only two weeks ago with Max. And her father-in-law still…

He still couldn’t…

“Okay. Let’s table it for now.” Lili conceded. “We won’t talk any more about school today.” Sandra nodded, and realized just how much tension that let out of the kitchen. “So what do you want to talk about?”

Sandra thought about it for a while. “Want to go check on the kids?”

“We _could_ , I suppose...but they might not react well.”

“If we went up by ourselves, like usual?” Sandra suggested, and tried not to wince at how _the usual_ sounded. Still, it gave her an idea. “But what about if we brought them something?”

“Like another game to play?”

“Something better.” Sandra set her cup back down and scooted away from the table, offering her sister-in-law a tentative, shy smile. “Do you have the fixings to make sugar cookies?”

They hadn’t done any baking together in years, not since Verdona had passed away. Sandra considered it a wild, mad hope, she figured Lili would refuse, or say that it would ruin the kid’s dinner. Or that she would refuse out of hand.

But things had bent enough for the unusual to not be so unpalatable. Lili smiled back, stood up, and smoothed out her skirt.

“I think I do, actually.”

An hour later, the kitchen was full of the smell of fresh cookies made with love. Both mothers made their way upstairs with a plate of cookies between them, and changed the paradigm. Ben and Gwen had two cookies each, but insisted on splitting each one, which made Lili laugh and wonder when Gwen had gotten so good at sharing.

It wasn’t until the end of the visit, when Sandra was in the car with Ben and half a mile out that she realized that she and Lili had averted the usual arguments. And that Lili had hugged her when they’d said their goodbyes. She hugged almost as well as Gwen hugged Ben.

“Did you have fun, sweetie?” Sandra asked Ben, who still grinned like a maniac in his car seat in the back. Gwen always made him smile.

“Uh huh! Can we have cookies when she comes over?”

“If you’re a good boy, Ben, we’ll see.”

“I _am_ good! Gwen says so!” He chirped back.

“Oh, well, if _Gwen_ says so.” Sandra laughed.

 

***

 

_Ben’s House_

_June 29th, 1992 C.E._

_10:14 A.M._

 

Sandra walked into Ben’s room with a sippy cup of cold fruit punch; mixed herself, with a little less powder than the recipe called for. “Ben, honey? Are you okay?” She asked carefully.

Her precious little boy grumbled and curled into his blankets even tighter. “It’s so _itchy_.” He groaned, though he wasn’t able to go after them. Not with piano gloves on his hands, and taped up so he couldn’t take them off. She’d put enough bandages on his arms yesterday.

“I know, honey. It’s no fun at all.” Sandra comforted him, rubbing his back a little bit. “Are you thirsty? I’ve got some fruit punch here.” He grunted once and came up for air with a sour look on his face, but he took the cup and drank as much as he could. “Go slowly.” She coached him. “There’s more if you want it.”

“Want Gwen.” Ben said, handing the mostly empty cup back to her. “She knows what to do.”

Sandra sighed again. That was his solution for almost everything. ‘Want Gwen.’ And if he thought she was supposed to be around, he’d say ‘Where’s Gwen?’ She brushed his hair back and smiled when he squirmed away from her hand. “I know you do, sweetie, but…”

And she hesitated. Really, it wasn’t like Gwen could get the chicken pox _again_. But…

But.

So Sandra smiled. “I can’t make any promises. But I’ll call your Aunt Lili and see if she’d let Gwen come over. Okay?”

Regardless of how miserable Ben was feeling with his face, arms, and chest covered in tiny red spots, that not-quite-a-promise made him brighten up and smile like he hadn’t in days. “Kay.” He said, and burrowed back into bed.

“And you won’t try picking at them?” She asked.

“No.”

“Promise?”

“Pwomise.” Ben grunted, with only a little bit of a face. Sandra left the cup beside his bed for him and went downstairs to make a phone call. She only hesitated for about twenty seconds before she punched the second number on the speed dial.

To her surprise, Gwen answered the phone, and after sounding very phone-mature for her age, brightened up after she realized who was calling. She must have stayed close after Lili took the phone from her, because as soon as Sandra asked if Gwen could come over to help Ben feel better, the little girl squealed excitedly and immediately started rattling off _please-please-pleases_ like she was a typewriter. Lili sounded incredibly frustrated, but with Sandra listening in and biting her cheek to keep from laughing, she eventually agreed to a visit in the afternoon _if_ Gwen was a good girl the rest of the morning and helped her with chores.

Sandra almost went back up to tell Ben the good news, but stopped halfway up the steps. He needed sleep right now, and if she told him Gwen was coming, there would be no chance of that happening.

 

He still asked when she woke him up for lunch, though. And when she told him that Gwen probably was coming by in the afternoon, he grinned again, then turned serious.

“She gets cookies.” He said, less a request and more an order. “You pwomised.”

Sandra blinked at that, tried to recall the conversation, and laughed when she did. “Yes. Yes, I did. Okay. But you have to stay up here still, okay? Until she gets here, and then maybe if you’re feeling better, you can come down and play with her for a while. Otherwise, she can visit you here in your room.”

“Kay.” He nodded his head exactly once, as if considering the matter settled.

“So. Sugar cookies? Or chocolate chip? Or oatmeal raisin?”

“Choc’wit chip!” Ben insisted. She laughed again and headed downstairs to get started.

 

She’d just gotten the pan into the oven when the doorbell rang, and when she went to answer it, a sudden thud from upstairs made her pause. Then the steady thumping of Ben’s tiny feet along the hallway made her chuckle, and she went to the door to answer it.

“Don’t run down the steps, Ben! I don’t want you falling!” She called up towards him, then opened the door and beamed at Lili and Gwen, waiting on the other side.

“Hi, Sandra.” Lili said, smirking just a little. She arched her eyes over Sandra’s shoulder. “Up and around, I take it?”

Sandra had to chuckle. “Soon as the doorbell went off. I think he…”

“Gwen!” Ben rasped, his face covered in red spots. And then Gwen’s eyes went shock wide.

“You too?!” She almost yelled, and squirmed out of her mother’s hand, making a beeline straight for him.

And Lili just raised an eyebrow, for once not bothering to correct Gwen to not yell, or to not run, or to not do any of the half dozen things she’d done and was still doing in the last five seconds. Sandra shrugged, but her smile felt a little more genuine.

“I just put some cookies in. Coffee or tea?”

“I wouldn’t mind some tea.” Lili conceded, and they made their way back to the kitchen as their children started squawking at each other, with Gwen fussing over Ben every step of the way. “Honestly, it’s like she’s a different girl the moment she sees him.”

Sandra paused with her hand around a box of black tea bags, and felt the question form in her mind. _And what’s wrong with that?_

But she held her tongue, another rare concession. “I have decaf and regular black tea.”

“Oh, either is fine.” Lili reassured her. The red-haired woman sat down at the table and angled her chair so she could look out into the living room, where the kids were now sitting down on the carpet, while Ben pulled his sleeves back so Gwen could make faces at all the spots on his arms, and the marks of anti-itch lotion Sandra had tried to cover them with. “How’s he been doing?”

“Same as Gwen, I think. Kept trying to scratch at them all, and he gets tired easily. Not much of a fever, though. Thank goodness.”

Lili hummed and nodded. “I’ll be glad when they’re both over it. Gwen’s lost the spots, but she’s still on the mend herself.” Sandra set a teakettle on the stove to boil and then checked the oven again, then set a timer for the cookies inside. “Still, it’s better that they’re dealing with it now, and not this fall when they’re in school.”

Sandra got out a couple of coffee mugs from the glass cabinet and put a teabag in each of them, and waited for Lili’s next question.

“Have you been thinking about what school to send him to?” Lili asked.

“The one in our district is Drake Elementary.” Sandra said calmly, sitting down on the other side of the kitchen table. “It would be good, keeping him close to home. And you’re sending Gwen to that private school, right?”

“Angelwood.” Lili said with a nod. “It’s not exactly around the corner from our house, but it’s a good school. She’ll have a lot of opportunities there.” The woman drummed her fingers on the table. “You could send Ben there too, you know.”

“We _could_.” Sandra tried to keep a civil tongue in her head. “But he’s smart enough that he could succeed anywhere. And Drake’s got a good reputation as well. Besides, I’m not sure he’d be _happy_ at Angelwood. I read that brochure you left, and...uniforms? _Really_?” She shivered, and thought of the parochial schools that _her_ parents had insisted on sending her and her brothers and sisters to. She thought of her brother Eric, who’d been forced to go through _conversion therapy_ , and… “I can’t stand the thought that they’d try to make my Ben into someone he isn’t. That they’ll do it to Gwen.” She added in a weak voice, and shivered again.

She half-expected Lili to fly off the handle again, like she always did. But the other woman didn’t. She looked like she wanted to, when Sandra looked up at her, but she held off and shook her head.

“Private doesn’t mean parochial.” Lili reminded her gently. “I was going to take Gwen there next week, to give her a chance to see the place. You could come along.”

“I don’t know.” Sandra wavered.

“If it’s a matter of money…” Lili hesitatingly started, but cut herself off when Sandra glared at her.

“My son is _not_ a charity case.” Sandra growled.

“I...I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did.” Lili backpedaled.

The teakettle whistled, and Sandra bit off her next retort, going to kill the heat and pour them each a cup. She brought the mugs back over and set them down, leaving her tea to steep.

Lili used a spoon to stir her bag through the steaming water. Sandra used the silence to breathe in and out, then froze.

She couldn’t hear the kids out in the living room. She stood back up and went to go and check on them, but…

They came into the kitchen, hand in hand. Looking sad.

“Mommy, we hafta go now?” Gwen asked, looking down at the floor and squeezing Ben’s hand all the harder.

“No, sweetie.” Sandra said, instantly denying the possibility before Lili could get a word in. Seeing Gwen look that miserable was just _wrong_.

“You were yelling.” Ben mumbled.

“We were talking, Benjamin.” Lili said carefully. “Not yelling.”

“Not happy talking.” He replied. And Lili flinched.

“We were talking about schools.” Sandra explained.

“Gwen’s going to kindergarten this fall.” Lili went on, maybe, hopefully, just as eager as Sandra was to keep the kids from being sad, again. “A school called Angelwood.”

“And your daddy and I thought, Ben, that you could go to kindergarten also.” Sandra added. “There’s a school close by to here. Drake. You’ve seen it a couple of times when we go driving around. What do you think?”

 

Sandra almost flinched as soon as she said it, because one of the parenting books she read was insistent that you never _ask_ your child what they want. You _tell them_ what they’re going to get. Of course, there was that other book which said to give them a _choice_ , so they feel like they have ownership in their lives, but you’re retaining control.

Lili waited while Ben scrunched up his face in his rarely used ‘thinking look’ and then turned his head to look at Gwen. The little red-haired girl looked back at him, and Sandra could see her squeeze his gloved hand even tighter.

“Kindergarden.” Ben finally said. “Okay. I go with Gwen.” And Gwen grinned at him, and Ben grinned back.

Sandra wondered who’d pulled the rug out from under her. “Uh, Ben, that’s...you see, she’s going to a different school than…”

“Nuh uh!” Ben hollered, instantly angry. Gwen mirrored his rage, stepping ahead of him.

“Together!” She snapped. “Want Ben!”

 

Panicking and wondering where her exhausted son found the energy to get so mad, Sandra looked over to Lili for moral support, and found the other woman looking just as surprised as she felt.

Laughing together after that was the easiest thing to do. The kids relaxed a little when they did, but they still didn’t walk off, and stayed in the doorway, holding each others’ hand. Because this was important.

Sandra walked over to them and knelt down so she could meet their eyes. “Ben, are you sure?” She asked. “You haven’t seen her school. If you went there, you’d have an outfit you’d have to wear every day. You couldn’t wear your favorite shirt all the time.”

That did make him squint up a bit, but only for a second. And then he was back to looking stubborn and deadset.

“Gwen’s there.” He insisted. “I go to _her_ school.”

Sandra’s lip quivered as she looked at her boy, and for an instant, saw a glimpse of the man he might grow up to be. Then she wiped at her eyes, and it was gone.

“Okay, Ben. Okay.” She surrendered. “You can go to Gwen’s school.” And the both of them cheered at that, scampering back off with Gwen chattering about how _good_ it was going to be.

Sandra sat back down at the table, and Lili shook her head. “I honestly didn’t see that coming.” The red-haired woman said.

“Neither did I.” Sandra admitted. And then the worries set in. She’d given her word that her son could go to Gwen’s school. But how would they be able to get him in? The few times she’d bothered to pay attention to Lili nattering away, she’d mentioned _tests_ to even be admitted, and there was the tuition, and her worries about the uniform, and…

Lili reached across the table and grasped her hand. “He’ll get in.” She promised Sandra, her eyes glimmering. “All those flashcards he insisted on doing with Gwen? He’ll pass with flying colors.” And then she squeezed her hand, like Gwen had squeezed Ben’s only seconds before. “We’ll do whatever we can to help, if you want help. But there are also scholarships. We’ll make it work, Sandra.”

“I hope I’m doing the right thing.” Sandra whispered.

“Look at it this way.” Lili said, pulling her hand back and chuckling. “It’ll be a brand new school for the both of them. School is always scary when it’s new. At least they’ll have each other as something familiar.”

“I suppose they will.” Sandra said. And then the oven timer finally went off, and when the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafted through the house, Ben and Gwen came barreling back in, eager for a snack. They got cookies and fruit juice while Lili and Sandra had cookies and tea, and it ended up being one of the most civil afternoons they’d spent together in years. She was still nervous about a lot of things, and wondered how Carl would take the news that they would have to start setting money aside for private tuition, but there was one thing Sandra felt sure about. She wasn’t worried about Ben being lonely anymore.

The kids would be staying together.

 

***

 

**Author’s Notes**

 

Everyone knows that Ben and Gwen could barely stand each other by the time they went on their big summer trip when they were ten, but what no one knows is that they were nearly inseparable for their first four and a half years.

 

In the Little Moments universe proper, something happened that set their next six years, but in this world there is a glance taken, a look seen and a word reconsidered and that makes all the difference.

 

This story started as an au while Erico and I were dealing with other worlds. It was just an idea of how cute it would be to see them growing up together, from their first day of kindergarten on. This is just the beginning of the cute.

 

This story will only be updated when we have a need for something cute and light hearted, but this Ben and Gwen have their own story to tell. We hope that you enjoy it.

 

-Shadows59


	2. Chapter 1: The Kids Start School

**Chapter One: The Kids Start School**

**By Shadows59**

_Angelwood Elementary_

_Bellwood, California_

_August 26th, 1992 C.E._

_7:55A.M._

Some people loved Christmas, but the first day of school was always Anna's favorite day of the year.

" - pick a seat, Ms. Hunter, we'll be starting soon!" She said as she grinned down at the little girl with long blond haired that was held in a ponytail by a bright pink bow. The splash of color brought up the same little bit of resentment that she always had for the uniforms that the school _insisted_ on - a plain black skirt and a blue sweater for the girls was so _dull_ and the blue polo shirts and black knee pants for the boys was even _worse_ when her kids should be splashes of color - but it was probably for the best when the little girl looked so _cute_ as she danced on her toes and looked into the classroom with huge blue eyes.

Cute and then _adorable_ when she pulled on the straps of the tiny Kitty Cat backpack that she had over her shoulders and squeaked out, 'Kay! Mz. Hughes!" Her little Mary Janes were so shined up that they all but glittered as the little angel raced in. Yes, the uniform was for the best. Anna was sure she never would have been able to take it if she saw the little girl in the bright dresses she must wear at home.

It was a cuteness that the woman standing next to her didn't even seem to see anymore as she just sighed, "Marci..."

Anna gave the woman a little look and then pretended not to notice as Mrs. Hunter's frown vanished the second the little girl came racing back and hugged the woman's knees for almost a whole second before she called out, "Bye mommy!" Then she went racing back to the only table that was still unclaimed and so she could pull the right chair out and clamber up into it. There was another excited squeal when she saw the crayons that were waiting for her and whoever picked the seat next to her.

"My Marci's not usually like this," Mrs. Hunter sighed as she ran her hand through her own long blond hair, like Ana needed any more proof that the two were mother and daughter.

"It's the first day of Kindergarten, Mrs. Hunter," Anna grinned at the woman because she could hold back her giggle, but not that. She took in the sight of the eight other kids that were piled up inside. Some were drawing like Marci, others were over by the toy box like they'd never seen them before and they all looked like they were having the time of their lives."Most of the kids are like this when they get here."

The rest usually burst out crying, and Anna hated that, but at least she didn't cry with them anymore. The last few years broke her of _that._

But she still kept some candy in her desk, just in case. She'd only needed to hand out a few pieces this year, which had to be a good sign, and the two girls and the little brown haired boy who'd all had meltdowns before were all smiles now. All nine of her kids were. Everyone else could have Christmas, this was _better._

For her, anyway.

She half listened to Mrs. Hunter as she said something else, something that sounded like the same lists of things that her little girl could and couldn't do that they'd gone over during Open House and if any of it was the least bit life threatening then Anna would have given it her whole attention, but it wasn't so she did her best and held back from blurting out that she _wasn't_ going to sanitize everything before the girl touched it. Kids and dirt belonged together.

So did kids and fits, and from the sounds of it her friend had to deal with a barn-burner a couple of minutes ago. Even after the last five years she was still amazed that anyone could _yell_ that loud, much less a kindergartner. She'd had a little girl who was almost as loud last year and Emma came charging over the second it started, but the woman had a good decade of teaching on her and that meant so much.

It meant enough that Anna chewed at the inside of her cheek as she oh so casually looked around the woman in front of her to the door across the hall from hers and tried to see inside. She saw a few kids in there, but none of them had the grins that hers did. They weren't storming out either, though. Not like the other mom did a few seconds after the screaming started, her face red and wet under her mess of dirty blond hair like her world was ending, too.

If Mrs. Hunter and Marci hadn't walked up at the same time…

Anna wished that she could have given the woman a hug and a tissue. If Mrs. Hunter wasn't staring at her, she still might have gone for the one she had hidden in the sleeve of her sweater just from the memory. As it was, all she could do was smile away the tears. "It's a good thing that Marci's excited, Mrs. Hunter."

"I suppose," the other woman sighed and said a few more things before she turned and started down the same hall that the other blond had fled not five minutes ago. Anna's eyes followed her as she looked for the other mom or her last student. She knew that she wouldn't have stood a chance if she was in the other hall, but this one was for kindergarten to fourth grade and even her five foot and three inch frame towered over most of the kids here, not that she was looking for kids, but it made finding the parents all the easier.

First time moms were always the easiest, too. They all had the same look that Anna saw in the mirror when she was nibbling on her nails and the red haired woman she saw making her way through the kids and towards her was no exception.

Almost. If anything, this woman looked even more worried than most as she kept glancing down at her right side until her left hand actually did brush her lips. First timers always needed kid gloves and this one looked like she needed it even more than most. Anna didn't need a class or her mentors to tell her _that,_ but they all did. Especially when they were as young as the woman in front of her. Honestly, they could have gone to school together, except Anna never looked as put together as the woman in front of her did in her simple green sundress that had no right looking as good as it did. Not now, and she was sure not by the end of the day. And she'd never had hair that looked as good. Angelwood frowned on hair dye and that was the hardest part about taking the job, but she was sure that if she could find a bottle that matched that shade of red, even Mrs. Clemonte would look the other way.

That was before the kids in the hall _finally_ remembered that they had places to be and they finally thinned out enough that she saw the tiny girl that was walking next to the woman and oh so purposely not holding her hand, but there wasn't any hiding the awe in her green eyes as she looked _everywhere_ or the copper fire of her hair that put even her mother's to shame, much less the inky nothing of Anna's. That should have been enough, but the tiny thing looked _adorable_ her uniform skirt and sweater, too.

"Hi, Sweetie!" Anna cooed as the girl and somehow fought down the urge to just give her a hug because if she did that she would have never been able to let her go, much less tell the mother, "I think you made a wrong turn, Ma'am. Preschool is back - "

"I'm not in Pwe-school!" The girl said, the words whistled through the spot where two teeth were just starting to come in and if she'd been just a few months older it would have… Well, it still would have been adorable when she stomped her foot and glared up.

"That's - " Anna started before she bit her tongue as she looked up and the mom showed just where the little girl learned her glare _from_.

But the mom had more self control. Her voice didn't have any of the indignation of the little girl, but there was still an edge as she sighed. "Mrs. Hughes? I'm Natalie Tennyson, we met at the open house last week?"

"I remember, Mrs. Tennyson," Anna said as she made her smile come back because she didn't. Not really. It was all a bit of a blur even though she did her best, but lists were always easier than faces for her and the name clicked. At least until she looked down. She kept the smile on her face, but she could hear the disbelief in her voice as she asked, "Then this is Gwendolyn?"

The woman - Mrs. Tennyson smiled down at her daughter as she reached down and brushed her hand through that fiery red hair. "All better from her cold."

"But - " Anna said as she tried to swallow her disbelief. The office knew what it was doing when it placed the girl here, she was sure - and she tried to ignore how her mentors would have laughed at that. Tried and failed as she knelt down, careful to keep her skirt in place _and who expected teachers to get this dressed up for Kindergarten?_ If the money and the prestige wasn't so good… Prestige that meant that she shouldn't ask what she was about to, but the kids came _first._ "How old are you, Sweetie?"

The girl's emerald eyes lost all their fire as she grinned and showed off the gap in her teeth again. "4 and three-quarters!"

"Gwen…"

"A'most," Gw - no. No keep it at the girl. Don't get attached. Not if this really was a mistake and especially not when the girl was _adorable_ as she blushed at the admission.

"How- ?" Anna almost finished that question before she bit off the _almost._ She made her smile stay in place even as she looked up. She didn't change her tone, not that it fooled the little girl. "Ma'am. I think that there's been some kind of mistake. Children aren't allowed to start kindergarten until - "

No, there wasn't any doubt where the little girl learned her glare from. "Unless they pass the tests for early placement, Mrs. Hughes. Which my Gwendolyn did with flying colors and so did - " Mrs. Tennyson started and stopped as she shot up and down the hall before she let out a sigh. "Of course they're late."

"They are?" Anna asked as she looked over all the kids that were _finally_ starting for their classrooms even as they kept babbling happily to each other, but… Then she shook her head as she looked at the little girl in front of her. The one who was _precious_ and looked a good five months younger and three inches shorter than everyone else. "It's - it's not just a question of intelligence, Ma'am, but…" she tried to say before she melted under the matching glares.

If the office thought it was okay….

"Go pick out a seat, Honey," Anna heard the words leave her mouth even as her stomach turned into a knot as she watched the tiny thing grin again.

The knot only got bigger as the girl hugged her mom's knee before she went dashing in as she called out, "Ben! Ben!"

"She's so small," Anna whispered.

She thought she whispered it to herself until she heard Mrs. Tennyson clear her throat, but at least she had the grace to look nervous as she kept looking up the hall. It was more than most of the mom's in this school would do. "My daughter can - "

There weren't words for how tight the knot in Anna's stomach got as the girl came charging back out. "Mommy! Ben's not here! You gotta - " she started as her breath came in little gasps.

Anna shot a look to her aide who didn't even waste the time it would take to nod before she dashed for the desk and the candy that was waiting because they could both _feel_ the meltdown coming as the little girl stomped her tiny foot, but that wasn't what made Anna frown. That was her running through the list of her students in her head. "I don't have a Ben - "

That was as far as she got before Mrs. Tennyson sighed and knelt. Marie could have sworn that she heard the woman murmur, "We were supposed to do this _together_ ," under her breath. Not that the words or the hurt behind them made _any_ sense. The next ones did as she hugged the little girl to her. "There were too many kids this year and Ben's mommy and daddy signed him up too late, Silly Bean, so he was put in the other kindergarten. Your daddy and I didn't want to tell you because I was _sure_ that we could fix it. Ben's mommy and daddy didn't tell him either and we've been trying ever since we found out last week, but…"

Anna wanted to cry as the little girl pulled away from her mom and stared at her with wet eyes that just made the green brighter. "But - but - "

"You'll still see your friend at recess and lunch, Honey!" Anna burst in as she clutched her hands over her chest because she had to say _something_.

The little girl spun her head around so fast that her long, bright red hair trailed after her like a comet's tail, "but…" she tried as tears ran down her face.

"Gwendolyn Rose!" Mrs. Tennyson said even as she dug a tissue out of her purse and wiped away them away. "What did I tell you?"

"Ladies don't cwy," the girl said, and she sounded _miserable_ as she said it.

"That's right," Mrs. Tennyson said as she pressed a kiss into her daughter's forehead and then wiped that away, too. "You heard Mrs. Hughes. You'll see Ben plenty, and you'll make lots more friends, too. Now - " she started just as the bell rang and it was loud enough that it almost hid the way that the woman sniffed, too. "Now, go with Mrs. Hughes and have fun."

"Okay, Mommy," little Gwen whispered and sniffled as she looked down at her feet. The girl didn't fight it at all as Anna reached over and took her hand and led her in.

She didn't even seem to notice as the tissue went to her mother's eyes, but Anna did. "Your mommy is right," Anna said to both of them as she gave the woman a smile and closed the door with the other hand. "I have a treat in my desk for brave little girls, and I think that someone saved a seat for you."

Gwendolyn sniffed and kept looking around, curious despite everything. Curious and worried. She saw the little lips move, but she couldn't hear a sound. "What was that, Honey?"

"What if they don't like me?" Gwen whispered, her lip quivering. "There was a mean girl at the park, and a boy at the libwawy who pushed Ben and… and I have to…"

All the HR rules in the world wouldn't have kept Anna from hugging the little girl then, or from squeezing her hand when she took it again and lead her to the desk up front and the little blond girl who was scribbling like mad. "Marci? This is Gwen and I was wondering…"

"You're hair is so pretty!" Marci burst out with glee the second she saw Gwen. Then the lithe blonde was off her chair and running over before Anna even finished. She might have felt the little red head squeeze her hand as and if she did, she didn't blame the girl one bit. Then the two girls were hugging - well, Marci was hugging while Gwen just stood there wide-eyed, but the girl didn't cry or yell even as she was pulled to the desk. The little blond babbled the whole time. "You're so tiny! Tiny like my dolly! We'll be best fwiends forever just like me and Buttercup! Come on! We have crayons and I'll share!"

There was something like a smile on Gwen's face as she pulled herself up into her chair and Marci pulled hers over so they could sit close, but Anna watched those green eyes keep looking around and her bottom lip quivered the whole time class went on.

\- o - o - o - o - o -

"Dey have a jungle gym!" Anna heard a little boy shout the second the other door opened and she only jumped a little even as it made her kids yell, too.

"Mr. Flint, what did I just say?" A British voice called out and Anna hid her smile behind her hand as she glanced away from her kids as they chased each other around the yard. Especially the flashes of red and blond hair as they dodged this way and that through the playground in a game that might have been hide and seek if the giggles didn't keep giving them away.

"Marci! Gwen!" Anna called out for the third time as a brunette woman with messy hair led her kids out in a line that was just barely holding together even before she sighed, "All right, you can go play." They both watched their classes scatter as the other woman all but staggered over to the bench that Anna had already claimed.

"Bad day?" Anna asked as she held up the bag of apple slices that she'd been snacking on.

"Horrible," the other woman said with a tired smile as she sank down on the bench, too - only she made it look _graceful._ If Anna didn't love the older woman so much… "Apple slices, really?"

Anna just shrugged because this was all part of the game. "My kids get hungry, and I can't _make_ them eat the stuff that you call food," Anna said and she bit down just so the apple crunched like none of the woman's homemade dishes ever did.

"That's because none of you Yanks know the slightest bit about culture or cuisine," Emma said as pushed her bushy brown hair out of her face and took a slice. Her eyes kept moving just like Anna's did, or they were until she heard what the woman muttered next. "And we know how to let kids be kids."

"You went to a boarding school!" Anna said, suddenly defensive as she looked for and saw Gwen again.

Their mad dash must have been over because she was sitting by the sandbox with Marci and Blair, but only the blond and the little Chinese girl were smiling as they sat there on either side of the little girl and tried to pass her back and forth as they pretended to feed her as the pinched look on Gwen's face got deeper and deeper until she finally pushed away and shouted, " - not a _baby!"_

Anna sighed and called out, "Play a game you'll all enjoy, girls!" They did after that. Kind of. The little Chinese girl was just staring at Gwen's red hair or looking at Marci like whatever the girl was saying was the most important thing in the world while Gwen kept looking around as her pout got bigger and bigger. Big enough that Anna started to get up when the woman next to her let out a snort.

"When I was _eight,"_ Emma said like Anna hadn't just yelled across the playground. She kept her voice low, but there wasn't any hiding the annoyance in her words. "Not _four!"_

"This isn't - !" Anna tried even as her stomach clenched. She didn't even bother to wonder how the woman knew already. It was Emma. The woman was just _magic._ "And Gwen's very bright for her age!" Which was _such_ an understatement. Most of her kids knew some of the alphabet and their numbers, but Gwen knew them _all._ And how to read a clock, but still… "I can see why her mom - !"

"Her?" Emma asked as she turned and blinked. "Who's Gwen? I was talking about…" the woman sighed and dug the toes of her black shoes into the grass. "The boy in my class is bright, too, but… My God, Anna! Ben's not even five! He should be at home playing!" She shook her head. "You people are always in such a _rush_. I don't care what the office says, if his mother hadn't left when he started… I was so ready to give her a piece of my _mind!_ "

"That poor woman," Anna said and it should have been a joke. It might have been if she wasn't so sure that her friend was talking about the lady with dirty blond hair who rushed away in tears. The same worry that almost made her chase the woman made her look around at all the boys that had come charging out, but none of them looked all that upset. "Which one is he? It looks like he's - "

"He's not out yet. He's why we're late," Emma muttered as she crossed her legs and kicked her foot. Then she sighed and took another apple slice before she sighed. "He's been sullen all day since that tantrum this morning, or he _was_ until I said we were coming out here to have recess with your class and then he just charged for the door. I had to leave him inside with Cathy because he just wouldn't wait and get in line. I swear that that the only reason I'm not still in there is because I told him he'd spend all of recess inside if he didn't sit _still._ " The words were so firm, but it didn't hide the way she sighed. "I can't even be mad at him. He's _four._ He should he playing at home with his friend, not…"

"His friend?" Anna asked as she looked at her little red haired girl again.

There was another little sigh and smaller nod. "A girl named Gwen. He's been going on about how they were supposed to be in class together all day. It would be sweet if he wasn't so..."

_Gwen?!_

"What did you say - ?" she started as Emma's door flew open again and a brown haired ball of energy came bursting out into the yard. He was a tiny stick of a boy who made even Gwen look tall and she could just see the other boys sizing him up already.

What was his mom _thinking?_

Not that the boy _cared_ about that any more than he seemed to about keeping his messy brown hair neat. "You couldn't…" Anna asked as she patted her own hair as she tried to _think_. Neatness was a _rule -_ especially in Angelwood - and an even better way to stall.

"He threw an absolute _fit_ when I tried," Emma sighed again as she patted her purse. Then she shook her head and let out a little chuckle. "He has the will of someone twice his age, I'll give his mum that."

The lungs of one, too, Anna thought, as the boy looked all around and bellowed, "Gwen! Gwen! Marco!"

"Polo!" That was the only warning before a red blur shot by. That and the giggle as Gwen all but tackled the tiny boy and they both went to the grass.

"Gwendolyn!" Anna sucked in a breath and Emma gasped as they both shot to their feet, but the two just giggled as they hugged each other instead of crying or screaming.

At least until Gwen pulled away and scrambled back up to her feet and looked the boy over. Then she covered her mouth with both her of pudgy little hands as she burst out in more giggles. "You look silly!"

"Do not!" The boy shouted right back at her as he jumped up to his feet, his face going red with indignation as he shoved his hands over his shirt and knee length pants. "I look like daddy when he's being important!" Then he let out a bark of a laugh as he pointed right back. "And you're wearing a dwess!"

"Am not!" Gwen said as she stomped her tiny foot. "I'm wearing a skirt!"

"Silly!"

"Shut up!"

"Benjamin Tennyson!" Emma shouted as she hurried over even as the two stood toe to toe as Anna followed just a little slower because she could see them both grinning like this was the best day of their lives and they were kids at recess. They could shout a little. It wasn't like they were the only ones doing it.

Besides, it was all she could do not to join in. She might have if she didn't almost choke on the bit of apple that she'd been chewing on. "Tennyson?" She asked as soon as she could say _anything._ "Did you just say Tennyson?"

"If I say yes will you chew this time?" Emma said as she gave Anna worried look. "Why?"

A look that Anna barely saw as she stared at the two, who were still arguing and grinning all at the same time. "I wonder if they're…" she started to say brother and sister before she remembered that she'd seen both of their moms. Maybe it was just a coincidence?

She _almost_ believed that until Marci came running up, her eyes wide with worry as she skidded to a stop next to Gwen and glared at Ben and they both spun to her. Maybe, just maybe the fact that they had the same chin could be explained away, but those emerald green eyes? They _had_ to be related somehow. Then it didn't matter, not after the blond girl who looked so small to Anna even though she towered over the other two grabbed Gwen by the hand and tried to pull her away. "Gwen?! Gwen?! Are you okay? Who is dis - dis _doofus!"_

"AM NOT!" Ben shouted at her even as his face flushed red and he somehow pulled Gwen out of the other girl's grip.

But he wasn't the one who pushed Marci down. "My Ben is not a doofus!" Gwen shouted down, her face fierce enough that Marci just stared for a second before her hands went to her eyes and the tears started.

"Gwendolyn Tennyson!" Anna didn't shout the name, but her raised voice made every last one of the twenty kids in the playground stop dead and made a couple of them start sniffling even as the other woman sucked in a breath at the name and gave her a look. She tried her best to ignore all of that just like she did how pale the girl got as she spun around and stared up, or how Ben slipped in front of her, his face as red as Gwen's was white. If he were any taller… But he wasn't and Anna glared right over his head as she marched over. "We do not _shove_ on this playground, Young Lady!"

"I - I - " Gwen started as she stared up and she worried at her tiny hands.

Ben took a step forward and his glare was _precious._ "Gwen didn't!"

"We don't lie, either, Benjamin!" Emma said, her voice clipped and so British that the boy actually took a step back.

But he didn't back down. "Not! She started it!" Ben said as he glared down at the blond girl who was still crying like this was the end of the world, but it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see that her face was mostly dry under her hands.

"We don't name call either, Ms. Hunter," Anna said, her voice just a little softer but it still brought the thunder just so she wouldn't tear up, too.

Or yell at her friend, because the little girl was _hurt,_ but Emma looked like she was fighting a grin as she knelt down. "Or pretend we're crying." The loud crying died down as Anna gasped and one surprised blue eye peaked out from between fingers. Then Emma leaned in and whispered, "Not that you're bad, but I'm _British,_ young lady, and I could teach you a thing or two about acting."

"I was just…" Marci sniffed after a second and this time it sounded real. Real enough that there were a few tears on her cheeks when she dropped her hands. She sounded so small as she looked up at the tiny boy and girl in front of her and whispered, "I thought he was being _mean_."

"We still don't name call," Anna said, and she finally let her voice drop just a little as Emma helped the girl to her feet and brushed the wood chips off of her, "but this is why we're here. To learn how to do stuff like tie your shoes and read a book and say you're sorry."

Anna watched the three of them - four since Blair was standing just off to the side and glaring at Gwen - and tried not to think of the year she spent as an aide in middle school before she got this job. The kids there would have been at each other's throats for _months_ after this, not hanging their heads. Not _thinking._ All except for Ben, who just kept glaring.

Right up until Gwen reached out and took his hand. "That's what Gwandpa says, too," the little girl said in a low voice that wasn't a whisper and the boy finally let the scowl melt away as the little girl looked at the other. "I'm sorry I pushed you."

Marci blinked and stared down at her feet as she shuffled them. "Sorry I called your boyfriend names." The words were said so soft, not that they mattered.

"I'm not her boyfriend!" Ben said, suddenly hot again as Marci, Blair and Gwen all started to giggle. "I'm her Ben!"

"Dat's right!" Gwen declared as her giggles melted away and she just looked fierce as she squeezed the boy's hand again and it was all Anna could do not to laugh, and that only lasted until she heard the little sputtered giggle come from next to her.

"Good. I'm glad that's settled. We only have ten minutes left, so go and play!" Anna said as she gave her friend a look as the kids disappeared.

"Oh, shut up," Emma whispered right back as they went back to their bench. "That was _adorable."_ Then the woman let out a sigh that sounded much more like the noises that Anna heard on Masterpiece theater than the giggle did. "No wonder he was so upset when he found out..."

Anna just nodded as he watched the two start arguing again in the middle of the field, with Ben pointing at the teeter-totter and Gwen at her two new friends until the redhead's eyes got big again and there was more giggling as she pulled the two girls over. For some reason, Anna wasn't surprised at all as she watched Ben and Gwen jump on one side and the girls on the other. "She's completely different around him," Anna agreed with a sigh. She couldn't help staring at the little girl's wide grin as they shot up into the sky. It was so different from what she saw for the first few hours.

And from what she saw when the bell finally went off again. "Wanna stay with Gwen!" Ben shouted the second Emma got him off of the swings, and the little girl just nodded and glared and squeezed his hand again as she jumped off of hers.

"You'll see her again at lunch, Benjamin," Emma said as she tried to pull the two apart.

Tried and tried, but she didn't manage until Anna came to help pry their fingers apart. "School is _stupid!"_ Gwen shouted, as mad as Anna had ever heard a kindergartner as she glared up.

"It is what it is," Anna said as she all but pulled the little girl back to their door and tried to ignore the eyes she felt burning into the back of her head and the commotion that Ben was making, a noise that only stopped when the door closed behind them. "It is what it is," she told the girl again because it was.

And that was that.

\- o - o - o - o - o -

_August 27th, 1992 C.E._

_10:47 A.M._

That _wasn't_ that, but she didn't figure that out until two days later and five minutes after recess as she pointed at the big and stylized **T** that she'd just finished drawing on the board. "Who can tell me something that they saw outside that started with this letter?"

The question should have been a boring one with all the trees that surrounded the school, but they always thought of _something_ that surprised her. It usually wasn't right, but it was still so much fun, and today didn't disappoint. "My twain!" A little boy called out.

And everyone giggled, but especially Gwen, which was unusual. Gwen was so quiet when she was in class.

Anna scowled at that as she turned and said, "That's right, Julio!" As brightly as he could just to make the boy feel better as the girls' giggles kept coming. She didn't know why, but it wasn't like the kids needed an excuse. "Who else?"

"Gwen!" A boy whose voice she knew all too well burst out.

So did the two "Shhhhhh!"s A second too late.

"Ben?!" Anna gasped as she spun around and saw the brown haired boy sharing Gwen's seat as he sat there between the red head and Marci at their table. He grinned up at her so wide that it showed off the two gaps where teeth were just coming in. "What are you - ?!"

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't get a chance before the door to the playground was yanked open and a white faced Emma came spilling in. "Anna! Have you seen - ?" The terror in her eyes didn't go away, but the panic was washed away be a relieved fury as she stomped over to the desk. "There you are, young man! Do you have _any_ idea how worried I was?!" The woman shouted for the first time ever as she stomped across the classroom for the boy who looked as ready to fight as run.

Then Gwen jumped between him and his teacher. "No!" She shouted so loud that her voice echoed as she stomped her foot and something flashed in those green eyes. "Mommy said we'd go to school together!"

"Gwendolyn!" Anna growled at the girl as she hurried over, too. "Do you _want_ me to call your parents?!"

The little girl went so pale at that. Her and the boy behind her, but neither of them moved as Ben just shouted, "Mommy said!"

It didn't help. Neither did the way that they both started screaming as Emma grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room.

\- o - o - o - o - o -

_August 28th, 1992 C.E._

_8:08 A.M._

"-son?" Anna called out one last time, just in case, before her eyes settled on the empty seat next to Marci, who just looked _miserable_ as she sat there and looked at the spot that her best friend should have been. "Gwen must be sick today," she said with the softest sigh because…

Because she shouldn't feel _relieved_ that one of her babies were sick, but she _was._ After the last week, after all the fights and all the spots that she'd found the little boy in - and she _still_ didn't know how he'd hidden under Gwen's table! There wasn't an _under!_ Somehow he pressed himself up against the side and just _blended._ She didn't even _know_ how many times Emma came storming in after that first day, she just knew…

It wasn't the kids _fault._ It was the _Office's._ Anna tried to remember that, she really did, but today, she was relieved and she felt sick because of it. Almost as sick as Marci looked as she sat there and just stared at her little hands. "How are you feeling, Marci? Do you need to see the nurse?" Anna asked, worry making her voice even softer.

It should have been soothing, not make the girl look even more miserable as she shook her head and stared down at her feet. Miserable enough that Anna made her way over and sat down on the edge of her desk, ready to reach over just in case the girl did have a fever or spring back if it was an upset stomach. "Then what's wrong, honey? Gwen will be back tomorrow."

"I - " Marci started and sniffed as she clutched at her hands.

"Don't tell!" Blair shouted out from the next desk over.

Anna felt her smile vanish as she looked up at the other girl and felt her stomach twist _again_. "Tell _what,_ Blair?"

"Gwen's here," Marci sniffed and once those two words slipped out the rest rushed out after. "I _saw_ her! But she said that you said that Ben couldn't come in here no more, so she…" Then those little blue eyes went wide as her hands went to her mouth, but it didn't stop the words or the wailed, "Don't tell her I told!"

Anna knew that she should have reassured the girl - the _girls -_ but she didn't. She just rushed for her door and then the next one down the hall. She pulled it open as she felt her own explosion of words building, including one or two she _swore_ she'd never say in front of her kids, but they almost slipped out anyway when she saw the little red haired girl sharing a chair with the brown haired boy again.

Especially when her friend gave her a helpless look and a shrug as she made her way over even as she said, "That's right, Gwen! Aardvark does start with an A!"

"What are you - ?!" Anna hissed as the two kids turned and went pale as they grabbed for each others hands again like they had every day this week when they thought that they were going to get separated, but it was the look on their faces…

She loved it when her kids smiled and hated it when they cried, but these two were the only ones she'd ever seen _scowl_ like that. Like they were daring the world to pull them apart, and for the first time ever she saw the other teacher flinch. "I know!" Emma said, her words in a rush, "I know, but we've been fighting with them all week and - "

"Fine!" Anna said as she threw her hands up. "Just for today, you two! Do you hear me?" They did. The way that they cheered as they rushed over and hugged her proved that. It was the idea of a quiet day that made her smile at them, that was all, and she didn't feel even a little jealous as they rushed back to their shared seat.

Not even a smidge.

\- o - o - o - o - o -

"Why couldn't that boy have just gone to Drake?" Emma sighed as she pulled herself into teachers lounge and all but collapsed into her chair now that both of their classes were over.

Anna looked up from her water and tried not to wish that there was something stronger in it. "He was that bad?"

Emma just grinned at that as she pulled her water bottle out of the fridge and let herself collapse into the table. "Hardly. Today was the best Ben has been all _week._ He's a completely different child when Gwen's with him. Happy, attentive, and the way he shares his snacks with her... I swear, it should be illegal to be that cute."

"Lucky," Anna said as some of her jealousy came out. For getting to see that and because she wished she had someone who would share his snacks with _her._ "And Gwen?"

"She _glowed_ the whole time, even when they're arguing, the little trollop," Emma said with a tired laugh. "And she knows everything already. They both do. It must be a joy to have her in your class."

"If I got _that_ Gwen," Anna sighed. A glowing one instead one that glowered and looked ready to climb the walls? She wished… "Today is going to make the rest of the week all the harder when we have to separate them again."

"I _know,"_ Emma groaned as she buried her face into her arms. "I might just quit. One week was enough. I'm not sure if I have it in me to keep fighting those two."

"This is all the Office's fault," Anna grumbled as Emma just nodded and pushed herself up just enough to take a drink. "We should make them come down and - " And that was as far as she got before Emma spat the water across the table. "Hey!" She shouted as she sprang up, half soaked and glaring even though water wasn't the worst thing that she'd had spat on her. It wasn't even in the top ten. "What's the - !"

Emma coughed up the rest of the water. "That's simply _brilliant,_ Anna!" The woman said and tried to explain at the same time and she mostly managed.

She did well enough that Anna forgot all about how cross she was as she dug into her pocket. "Let's flip for it!" She said and the coin was in the air before she even finished the sentence.

\- o - o - o - o - o -

_September 1st, 1992_

_7:59 am_

Anna had to look and look that morning, but for some reason she wasn't the least bit surprised when she found the two huddled together back by the bookcases that she'd seen Gwen flee to during every quiet time.

"Dey going to make you go away again," Gwen groaned as she sat there with the little boy pressed up against her, misery making her sound even younger as she forgot all about being a little lady.

Ben's own growl mushed his words together even as he grabbed her hand and declared, "I liketa see them twy!"

"Ben?" Anna called out and the boy jumped, but he didn't look any less fierce. "Gwen? Ben? Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Why?" Gwen asked as she squinted up in a way no four year old ever should.

Anna shouldn't have laughed, she knew that she shouldn't. This whole thing was probably a bad idea, but she sat down anyway and smoothed out her dress as she did. "Because I talked to the Office over the weekend and they said that they made a mistake. Two people got put in the wrong classes and we're going to fix that today!" Anna grinned and waited, but as smart as they were, the two just blinked at that and Anna knew it was all her fault. She spent too long talking to the adults in the Office over the weekend. "If you want, Ben, you can stay - "

That was as far as she got before the happy squeals and hugs started. Anna just about joined them before they pulled apart and grabbed her up in their hug, too, and then Gwen took the boy by the hand and all but dragged him to her desk across the room. "Marci! Marci! Guess what! Ms. Anna said that Ben could - !"

"Ms. Hunter?" Emma called out from the door and the room went quiet. The British woman gave Anna a jealous look as she looked at the two cousins and then she smiled at their little blond friend. "I've been checking my books and I think you're in the wrong class. It turns out that mine could use a little actress in it, so If you'll come with me…"

"What?!" Marci gasped out, her blue eyes watering as she looked at Emma and then Anna. "Why?"

"The office switched you and Ben," Anna tried to explain, and when the little girl let out a sob she tried to take the blame. "It was all my - "

"You!" Marci howled as she jumped out of her seat and shoved Gwen to the carpet. "Why! We were _friends!"_ She spat the words out as she cried and cried. "Why's he so _special?"_

"I - I - " Gwen tried and tried to explain. "He's my Ben," she finally settled on because it was true and not enough. "But we are fwiends! And we can still play at recess and - "

"Shut up! Shut up! I _hate_ you!" Marci screamed and kept screaming even as Emma scooped the girl up and carried her from the room. Anna's stomach twisted one more time as everyone stared because she knew that none of the tears that were racking the blond's little body were the least bit fake this time.

"It's my fault, you two," Anna said finally as Ben helped Gwen up and the girl sagged into him. "I was the one who picked…"

"I'm her Ben," Ben said into Gwen's hair like it explained everything, but even he sounded a little sad at that. "Mommy said we'd go to school together."

"I know, Honey. Take your seat. I'm just going to take this to Marci." And maybe beg for forgiveness, but she really did think that Marci would do better in Emma's class. As much as she hated to admit it, the girl needed a teacher that could see through the fake tears. Emma could teach her how to be a lady far better than Anna could.

Gwen sniffed and looked at the papers and crayons that Anna was scooping up and slipping into the backpack that Marci had left behind. "Can I make her something? To say sowwy?"

"Together?" Ben said with a nod.

"Of course you can," Anna said as she watched the two open their tiny backpacks and grab their crayons. Crayons that they passed back and forth without a word as they worked on the same piece of paper. "And when we get back we'll learn about dinosaurs! Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"We can tell Marci at recess!" Ben said, his eyes glowing like little boys eyes always did when dinosaurs came up.

"Maybe give her a bit of time first," Anna said and Gwen just nodded. But honestly, it was kindergarten, how long could Marci stay mad?

Nowhere near as long as these two would have stayed miserable if they'd been kept apart. Anna knew that just from the way she watched the two work together from the door as she hugged the tiny backpack tight against her chest. "Inside the lines!" Gwen shouted at him as they scribbled on the page, a mixture of wild sweeping crayon brushes and slow, determined strokes that was just starting to look like a dinosaur. One that was… "And dinosaurs aren't _blue!"_

"Are too! And that's no fun!" Ben shouted right back even as he leaned in closer to her. It was a little startling to see, because in the week that Anna had gotten to know Gwen, she'd discovered that the little girl _hated_ being touched and hugged and jostled by Marci and Blair, because she'd always gone rigid and her face went squinty. But here was Ben, her cousin, pressed up alongside her, who'd constantly held her hand and snuggled and even gotten tackled by her out on the playground, and she looked as relaxed as Anna always wished she was. And for all the arguing, Ben lost the scowl that she saw marring his face so often and just grinned like being with her was the best thing ever. Even better than Christmas.

So maybe they did belong together after all.


	3. Chapter 2: The Kids Run Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moms stopped one argument, and it led to the kids going to Kindergarten at the same school, and eventually the same classroom. When they finally do argue again, Ben and Gwen will do the unthinkable to get away from the fighting.

**_COURTING DISASTER_ **

By Shadows59 and Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

* * *

 

**Chapter 2: The Kids Run Away**

By Eric ‘Erico’ Lawson

  
  


_ Angelwood Elementary _

_ Bellwood, California _

_ March 15th, 1993 C.E. _

_ 3:45 P.M. _

  
  


It was a Monday, and Sandra Tennyson was already on edge when she got the call from Lili asking her if she could pick up both of the kids from school because of an appointment that got rescheduled. Nothing good ever happened on a Monday. 

Still, she agreed, and then Lili had called the school to let them know that Sandra would be getting both of the children. She loved her niece to pieces, and she and Ben were inseparable. Thinking about those first weeks at school still put a smile on her face. They’d refused to be split apart, and in the end, their teachers had decided it would just be easier to let them stay in the same class than having them constantly trying to sneak into the other’s room. 

Going through the pick-up lane was a chore, but the waiting was worth it when the kids came running out with their tiny backpacks, grinning up a storm. Ben was a bundle of energy that dashed like a rocket, and he kept Gwen’s hand in his own, pulling her behind him while the two laughed, paying no attention to the traffic monitor in the orange reflective vest that yelled at them to slow down. Sandra just sighed and rolled her eyes as they hit the side of her minivan, then got out and walked around to hug them both and open up the door for them.

“You don’t have to run, Ben, I wasn’t going anywhere.” She pointed out, helping them climb in and buckle up in the second row of seats. “How was school today, you two?”

“Great, Aunt Sandy!” Gwen chirped up, her green eyes bright. “Can I stay over tonight?”

“Yeah! Can she, mom?” Ben quickly added, and the two worked up their eager pleading faces.

“Not on a school night.” She said to them firmly, intent on not giving into them. They kept the stares up and she sighed as she finished helping Gwen get buckled in. “But, I think we could probably let you stay for dinner. I’m sure that your mother wouldn’t mind that.” She conceded, and the two cheered.

Sandy rolled her eyes as she shut the side door and walked back around to the driver’s side door. She was a soft touch with the two of them, and they knew it. Besides, she was making tuna fish casserole with potato chip topping tonight, there was bound to be extra. Lili might appreciate being able to have a meal with Frank alone for once.

“...and then we can play superheroes, and…” Ben was still talking when she opened her door and climbed in.

“I get to wear the cape!” Gwen insisted.

“Nuh uh, s’mine!” Ben countered with a pout.

“Pleaaaaase?” Gwen asked, turning her pout on him. Ben crossed his arms and tried to frown at her, but he cracked in seconds and shook his head.

“Okay, okay.” He surrendered.

 

Sandra looked at the two of them, now five years old, in her rearview mirror and grinned. Ben’s cousin had him wrapped around her finger, all right. She almost felt sorry for him.

“Hey, mom, can we have juice and animal crackers when we get home?” Ben asked her suddenly.

Sandra sighed and shook her head as she drove out of the pickup lane and turned onto the street. 

She  _ almost _ felt sorry for him.

 

***

 

_ Ben’s House _

_ 4:40 P.M. _

  
  


The casserole had another 30 minutes to go in the oven and Sandra was working on the salad when the doorbell went off. She looked up the stairs as she passed by, listening to Ben and Gwen playing and occasionally letting out a high-pitched laugh or shout, then smiled and went to the front door. 

It was Lili, naturally, and Sandra gave her a smile and stepped to the side. The red-haired woman looked particularly exhausted, and was already wearing a scowl. Wonderful. Still, she made the attempt. “Hi, Lili. How are things?”

“They’ve been better.” Lili growled out, walking inside. “The tree pruners who were supposed to come out canceled, but they waited until an hour after their appointment to let me know about it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sandra consoled her as she closed the front door. “The kids are upstairs playing.” She chuckled a bit, wanting to change the subject to get Lili to relax. “They wanted to have a sleepover.”

“On a school night?” Lili scoffed, marching to the bottom of the stairs. “Gwendolyn! Honey, it’s time to go!”

The noises of the kids playing stopped, and Sandra joined Lili at the stairs. “That’s what I said.” She laughed. “But they did talk me into letting Gwen stay for dinner.”

“There you go again.” Lili muttered under her breath as she pressed a hand to her forehead. She pulled it down and looked at Sandra crisply. “Thank you, but no. I’ve inconvenienced you enough today, I think.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Sandra insisted. “Dinner’s already in and cooking, and it seems like you’ve had a horrible day. Why don’t you and Frank go out for dinner, or stay in and relax? Gwen can have dinner with us and then you can pick her up afterwards.”

Lili bristled at the idea and turned to face her. “I’m a capable mother, you know. I don’t need you  _ looking after _ my little girl for me.”

Sandra recoiled at the blow, and the last bit of her tolerance wore itself out. She snapped back at the woman with everything that a Monday could give her. “Hey, I was just trying to be  _ nice _ for once, Lili. And if you didn’t need me looking after your little girl then why did you bother asking me to pick her up at all?”

“Because I…!” Lili started, but froze, and so did Sandra as they looked up the stairs and saw Ben and Gwen standing at the top of the steps, glaring at them. Gwen was even crying a little, it looked like, and Ben’s tiny hands were balled up into fists and shaking. 

Sandra exhaled. “Ben, honey? Can you take Gwen to your room for a while? Your Aunt Lili and I need to have a  _ talk _ out in the garage.”

“Stop it.” Ben hissed at them. “Just stop it.”

“Ben!” Aunt Lili snapped up at him. “Don’t you talk back to us that way, young man!” And that just set Sandra off all over again. Fuming, she grabbed the Other Woman by the wrist and stormed back into the kitchen, forcing Lili to stumble and keep up with her or get her arm pulled out of her socket.

She opened the door to the garage and let go of Lili’s arm, half-expecting Lili to storm away from her. But Lili was apparently in the mood to fight after all; she slammed the door shut and took up position opposite of her beside the chest freezer.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, yelling at my son?” Sandra snarled at her. “You don’t  _ have the right to do that.” _

“Oh, and  _ you _ have the right to just decide that Gwen can stay over for dinner without checking with me first?” Lili snapped back. 

“I was  _ trying _ to do something nice for a change!” Sandra threw her arms up in the air. “Apparently that’s a big goddamned deal with you!”

“It is when you’re just trying to prove that you’re a  _ better mother _ than I am!” The dark red-haired woman hissed. “I’m  _ so sorry _ that I inconvenienced you with asking you to pick up Gwendolyn. Trust me, that’s one mistake I’ll  _ never _ make again!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Sandra shrieked. “Do you end up lashing out at  _ everyone _ who tries to do something nice for you? Are you that damaged? Of course you’d have to be, with parents as  _ stiff _ and  _ stuck up _ as yours are!”

Lili sucked in a breath of air like she’d been punched in the gut, and her eyes went wide. Her hands twitched at her sides, like she wanted to hit Sandra, and she almost expected Lili to take a swing at her.

“If I wasn’t a Lady…” She growled out. “I would make you  _ eat _ those words, Sandra.”

“No, you’re not the kind to hit people.” Sandra simmered, shaking her head. “You just use your words, all of the time, putting others down, putting yourself above them. Because you’re  _ perfect _ , and it’s never your fault, and the world would just be so much better if we all did exactly what you wanted us to do. I only hope your daughter takes more after Frank than she does you, because if she’s really your daughter, she’s going to end up just like you are. A miserable wreck of a woman wondering why the world  _ hates her!” _

Lili sucked in a sharp breath at that, then spun around. “We’re leaving. And from now on, you stay the  _ hell _ away from my daughter. I won’t have her growing up to be a wild hellion like your son.” She jerked the door to the kitchen open and started in, and Sandra, seeing red, followed her.

“My son is  _ not _ a hellion!” 

“You have  _ no idea _ how to be a proper mother, you parent from books.” Lili shouted over her shoulder. “You think I’m a terrible mother?! At least I still  **_talk to mine!_ ** _ ” _

Lili reached the steps going upstairs and stormed up, and Sandra just stood there at the bottom, watching with burning eyes and listening with sharp ears for Ben to so much as cry out once. Lili would drag Gwen away and didn’t usually bother with Ben, but they were both so mad, if That Woman did something to hurt her son…

Silence. “Gwendolyn! Stop hiding and come out this instant!” Lili’s resonant voice carried through the house, and Sandra blinked. Gwen was hiding? But hadn’t the kids been up in Ben’s room, playing?

Lili appeared at the top of the steps, frowning, but without the wild fury of before. She started down, still calling out loudly. “Gwendolyn Rose Tennyson, this is no time for games! We are  _ leaving _ , and you…” She was halfway down the stairs when her voice choked off and her hazelnut-flecked green eyes widened. Sandra stared at her for a moment, wondering what had surprised her so, and turned to follow the woman’s gaze.

Her heart stopped when she turned and saw the front door, wide open.

But...no, she had shut that door. Why would…

 

_ No. _ “No.” Sandra whispered. “Ben? Honey? Gwen? Kids? Where are you?” She didn’t dare walk to the front door, she couldn’t...she didn’t want to…

“I’ll...They…” Lili stammered, all of her thunder and fury evaporated for quiet fear. 

“Check the rest of the house.” Sandra got out, already moving for the kitchen. She didn’t wait to see if Lili complied, she just got back and saw…

A chair shoved up to the counter that she’d walked by before and hadn’t seen. An open cupboard.

She didn’t remember what happened after that. The next thing she remembered was running outside, Lili beside her, and the two of them screaming for their children who had disappeared.

 

***

 

_ Rest-Full RV Campground _

_ 5:52 P.M. _

  
  


Max Tennyson had found some measure of peace in his retirement. He still bounced around from place to place, but his pace was unhurried now. Now he had all the time in his life that he wanted, but he didn’t have his Verdona to share it with. He did have his sons though, and their wives (His daughters). And he had two wonderful grandchildren that he hadn’t seen enough of. But maybe he could change that, Max thought, as he stared at a map of northern California laid out over the dining table of his old RV. He still talked with his boys regularly, and he’d been warming them up to the idea of another camping trip this summer, something for about three days maybe. 

May was around the corner, and maybe they could all go up to Verdona’s pond. He usually just went by himself. It would be good if he wasn’t alone for once. And he’d been meaning to teach Gwen how to fish. If he could get Carl and Sandy to sign off on it, they could make a full day of it.

His stomach growled at him, and Max sighed and got up off of the bench. A look at his watch confirmed that it really was getting late. He didn’t feel like running out for a bite to eat, but he could probably rustle up something decent in the icebox with what he had left. A grilled salmon and cheese, maybe…

Then his mind stopped running through dinner choices when he heard a soft knock on the side of the RV. One of the neighbors? A couple of days ago, Mrs. Jenkins had introduced herself and asked for some lighter fluid, then invited him over to dinner with her and her husband. It was hard to turn down free hamburgers. Of course, they were gone now, but there was always some other traveling retiree passing through that needed something, and they were full of stories and news. It was almost as good as going there himself.

Max went over to the side door and opened it with a smile, wondering what new neighbor was going to introduce themselves tonight…

His smile froze on his face when he looked down and saw his grandchildren standing there, Ben was sniffling and trying to be strong, and Gwen’s lower lip was quivering under red eyes. She was still wearing her school uniform, Ben had changed into one of his shirts, and his jacket was flung over her shoulders. He had his bookbag hanging off of one of his arms, and the other gripped her hand tightly. 

“Ben? Gwen?” Max whispered, and stumbled outside to kneel down and pull them in close for a powerful hug. Gwen broke apart as soon as his arms went around them, and his shoulder got soaked with her tears. “Honey, what’s wrong? What happened? Where’d you two come from?”

“We ran away.” Ben mumbled into his other shoulder. “Can we stay with you, Grandpa?”

“Of course you can.” Max shushed them, and he picked them both up with just the barest creak of complaint from his knees. It was the work of seconds to bring them inside the Rustbucket, and he set them down on the floor. “I didn’t know you were coming.” He said carefully, moving to fold up his map and gesturing for them to sit down in the dining nook. They never let go of the other’s hand, he realized, as they made their way over after him and climbed up onto the bench seat opposite of his. “Why are you running away?”

“...Are you gonna be mad at us?” Ben asked, and Gwen whimpered a little and tried to hide her face in her cousin’s chest. Max’s breathing hitched a little at the sight of his granddaughter crying and his grandson looking two seconds from it himself.

“No. Never.” He quickly got out, and reached a hand across the table, palm up. “I just want to know what happened. I promise you two, I’m not mad at you. I just wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Our moms were fighting.” Gwen mumbled, lifting her head away from Ben just enough to be heard clearly.

“Again.” Ben muttered, and the scowl that Max’s grandson wore was one that he had no business wearing. “They always fighting.”

“Always?” Max raised an eyebrow, questioning. Ben’s glare deepened. He believed in what he was saying. Max swallowed down the burst of fear that caused. “Well. How’d you get here? Did you two walk all the way from your house, Ben?”

“Yeah.” The boy sniffled, and set his bag down on the table. Max reached for it and zipped it open, and found two empty juice boxes and the wrapper from a small package of peanut butter crackers. “I was smart. We took food.”

“Yes, you did.” Max agreed, changing his voice from concerned to serious. Ben wanted to be serious right now, and Max could match that. “I don’t think you packed enough, though.” 

He looked down at the table and shrugged, then pulled Gwen closer against him. “Had to go.” Ben said softly. “Too much yelling.”

“Why can they fight?” Gwen asked, wiping her nose on the sleeve of Ben’s jacket before finally turning the same dark green eyes of her grandmother on Max. They were red, and still full of tears, but he still froze for an instant as the reminder of his wife hung there in front of him. “Mom says yelling and fighting’s bad. How come they can do it and we can’t?”

“Adults forget the rules sometimes.” Max breathed out, putting his own pain aside. Right now, his grandkids needed him. He was damned if he’d ever fail Gwen and Ben. “It’s wrong when they do. And they need to be reminded about that sometimes, just like kids do.”

“Do they fight because of me?” Ben asked, miserable. Max blinked rapidly, and he could see the same question in Gwen’s eyes as well.

“It is  _ not _ your fault.” Max declared, and he got up from his seat and moved to kneel beside the table, setting his hands on their shoulders. “Okay? Your moms love you, both of you, they love you more than anything. If they get mad at each other, it’s not because of you. It is not your fault, Ben, and it isn’t yours either, pumpkin.”

“Really?” Gwen sniffed.

“Really.” Max said, and leaned up and over enough to hug them both again. “Now. I was just thinking about getting dinner started. Are you two as hungry as I am?”

The two kids fidgeted a little and looked at each other, and Ben finally looked up to his grandpa and nodded once, definitively. 

“I don’t have a whole lot in the fridge. How do you two feel about pizza? You want some pizza?” Max asked with a smile. He was relieved that they both started smiling again after that, with Gwen nodding eagerly. 

“Haw’iiin!” She declared, and Ben made a face. Max laughed. “Okay, pumpkin. Hawaiian, huh? And you, sport?”

“I ‘unno. No pi’apple.” Ben grumbled. Max winked.

“No pineapple. How about sausage and olives?”

“Bwack olives?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” Ben nodded. Max grinned and looked over to his small TV hooked up with massive rabbit ears over by the folded up bunks. 

“Hey, how about I pull a bunk down so you two can get comfy and watch a little TV while I get the pizzas ordered? And I think you two deserve some hot chocolate. Walking as far as you did? That’s something.” 

They cheered at that, and Max laughed, relieved at how quickly they could bounce back from almost falling apart crying. They were strong, his grandkids. They felt safe, they felt loved, and they were with their grandpa. He set the microwave to warm up some water while he was getting the bunk ready, and once they were watching cartoons, he set two mugs of hot cocoa (lukewarm) in their hands with three jumbo marshmallows floating on top of each of them.

It warmed his heart when he saw Ben take one of his marshmallows and put it in Gwen’s mug, setting it on top of the others. “You take it, Gwen.” He insisted, and she looked at him for a bit before popping it in her mouth. When she got done chewing it and swallowed it down, she giggled and leaned into his side, and Max felt calm enough to leave them be. He left them a towel over their legs while they were drinking their hot cocoa and a blanket behind them if they got cold, then grabbed his bag cellular phone and walked out of the Rustbucket, taking a lawn chair with him and locking the doors as he went. 

 

They were safe. He breathed in slowly and breathed out even slower, then called up the local pizza delivery store and put in an order. A small hawaiian for Gwen, and a medium sausage and black olive for him and Ben. On afterthought, he included a bottle of decaf soda as well. He checked his wallet to make sure he had enough money for the tip after, then made the phone call he knew he had to make, but was dreading.

_ “Hello?! Dad?”  _

“Hi, Carl.” Max greeted his youngest son, hearing the panic in his son’s voice. It was a panic he could take away in seconds. “The kids are here with me.”

_ “Oh, thank God.”  _ Carl gasped, and Max could hear him buckling under the weight of relief.  _ “Thank God. When Sandy called me half out of her mind, I...We thought…” _

“They’re okay.” Max said, forcing himself to stay calm. He needed to be the strong one now. “They’re a little tired, apparently they walked all the way here from your house. Are Frank and Lili over there?”

_ “They’re out driving around the neighborhood right now with Sandy. We were just about ready to call the police. I…” _ There was the noise of Carl slumping down. Into a chair or on the floor, Max wasn’t sure. Carl’s breath shuddered.  _ “Why did they do this, dad?” _

Max knew why. The thing he hadn’t known when he punched in the number to call Carl’s house was how he was going to say it. 

Now, in the moment, he finally did.

“They got tired of Lili and Sandra fighting.” Max forced the words out in deadly calm. “And they thought that their moms were fighting because of something  _ they _ did. That it was  _ their _ fault.”

_ “What?”  _ Carl sounded poleaxed by the news.  _ Good. _ Max wanted him poleaxed by it.

He wanted this whole business  _ done with. _

If his Verdona were still...She would have known what to say to them. She would have been able to make his daughters friends again.

_ “I...I’ll talk to Sandy about it. And call Frank. He’s got one of those car phones now, I can have him stop by and pick up the kids.” _

“No.” Max dismissed the idea. “No, I think the kids are better off staying with me tonight.”

_ “What? But dad, it’s a school night!” _

“Right now, my grandchildren are hurting and tired. They were crying when they got to my door, Carl.  _ Crying. _ ” Max growled out. “I don’t know what’s going on with Lili and Sandra, and I don’t know if you and Frank are a part of the problem as well. They’re in kindergarten, they can stand to miss a day of school. What they need right now is some time to put themselves back together. And that’s also what you all need as well, I think. Some time to talk to each other about what’s going on.”

_ “...Okay, dad. Okay.”  _ Carl wasn’t happy about the idea, but he wasn’t really arguing against it. He must have been exhausted by the ordeal.  _ “You’ll keep them safe?” _

“Of course I will.” Max promised his youngest son. They were his grandkids. Nothing was going to hurt them while he was around. “But if you could, Carl, I wouldn’t mind having some extra clothes for them. You could swing by and bring a bag. But just you, or Frank. I don’t think it’s a good idea for their moms to come by tonight.”

_ “I think I can get some stuff put together for Ben. I know Frank could get some things for Gwen as well. Thanks, dad. I’m sorry this all got dumped on you.” _

“We’re Tennysons, Carl.” Max said. “We don’t bother with the easy problems. I just want my family to all get along, and for my grandkids to feel safe enough that they never try to do this again.” He shivered a little. So much could have gone horribly wrong. That they got to him in one piece…

They were all just way too lucky.

_ “So what are you going to do with them tomorrow if they’re not going to school?” _ Carl asked. Max smiled and eased back into his lawn chair.

“Well, I thought I might take them fishing.” They spoke for another minute before Carl excused himself to get a hold of Frank and Lili, and then Max waited in the waning daylight for the pizza deliveryman to show up. 

Twenty minutes later, when he stepped inside, he found the kids slumped on the bunk and curled up on the blanket against each other, still watching cartoons with dozy, lidded eyes. The promise of a decent (unhealthy) meal perked them up, and they dug in cheerfully. By the time they all finished up, Carl came by with two bags of clothes. The kids both froze up when he came in, but Carl just smiled at them, told them that they could stay with Grandpa tonight and that it was okay and he’d see them tomorrow night. That simple reassurance was as relaxing for Max as much as it was the kids, and Max and Carl shook hands before he left. With some fiddling, Ben and Gwen were soon dressed in their PJ’s and ready for bed. Max started to get the top bunk set up, but Gwen cut him off.

“Wanna stay with Ben.” She pouted, and there was such earnestness in her face that Max allowed it. 

An hour after Max tucked them in, he walked back from the front of the RV where he’d been listening to a classic rock station on his radio on low volume and found the two curled up under the covers, side by side and cute as anything. He regretted not having a camera, and he smiled as he watched them for a few minutes before going to set up his own bed.

It was strange, feeling that he wasn’t alone when he finally dozed off.

He slept easier than usual.

 

***

 

_ 11:10 P.M. _

 

Carl Tennyson usually didn’t have any trouble sleeping at all. His wife had complained that he could, and had, slept through thunderstorms before. To be certain, the night hadn’t gone anything like he’d thought it would when he left work and came home. He found the house empty, his wife’s minivan gone, and a note in the kitchen.

That the kids were gone. That Ben and Gwen were missing, and that she and Lili were out looking for them. He called Frank right after, then drove out and found Lili and Sandra and dragged them back home. Somebody had to stay by the phone, so when Frank got there, the girls went with him, and it had been Carl’s responsibility to wait there in the empty house. Wait in a kitchen which smelled of overcooked tuna casserole, the dinner now sitting in the refrigerator to eat later. None of them were hungry, not with their stomach twisted into knots.

The call from his dad was unexpected, and it delivered relief and panic in equal measure. The kids had run away, and somehow found their way to the only safe place left to them in their grandfather’s RV. It was a relief because they weren’t hurt, they were safe and being taken care of.

It hurt because they didn’t feel safe in his home. It hurt because Ben and Gwen didn’t feel safe around their  _ parents. _

When he called Frank and told them all to grab some clothes for Gwen and to come home, he’d expected resistance to the idea. They were  _ their  _ kids, they belonged back at home, safe. Sure enough, both Sandra and Lili argued against the idea of leaving them with their grandfather. Once they started in on each other, though…

Frank all but shoved the bag with Gwen’s things into Carl’s arms and stared at Sandra and Lili as he said that maybe the kids needed a break after all. Frank never did raise his voice too often. He always knew just what to say to be heard, though. And their wives had heard it clearly enough, based on how they both looked at each other, faces full of pain…

And they all finally saw why the kids had run away from home. Why Max was so mad.

 

He didn’t usually have trouble sleeping, but tonight he snapped awake and wondered why everything felt wrong. Then he realized that the bed was half empty, and that his Sandy Bear, who usually slept snuggled up next to him, was gone.

The house was dark, and he didn’t hear any movement from the kitchen or the living room. But he did see a light coming from Ben’s room, and when he walked to the doorway and found it open, he saw his wife sitting on the floor in the glow of Ben’s Kangaroo Kommando nightlight with her knees drawn up to her chest. She didn’t look back at him as he came close, and instead just stared at the empty bed where their son should have been sleeping.

She was wearing her usual T-Shirt and short shorts, and usually she glowed with life, even at night. But watching her as she sat there, rocking gently, Carl realized that she was paler than usual. Faded, somehow. 

“Sandy?” Carl finally said, and even his whisper was so loud in the dark bedroom.

“He’s not here.” Sandy answered, a tremor in her voice. “My son isn’t here. He should be here, safe, sleeping in his own bed, and…”

Carl landed down beside her, held her gently. “He’s with dad. They both are. They’re  _ fine _ .”

Sandy’s eyes finally teared up. “I did this. They ran away because of me.”

“I think you and Lili can both take some credit, hun.” Carl reminded her, stroking her back. Sandra hiccuped a little, not disagreeing with him. “What were you even fighting about?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Probably, but I still want to know.”

“It...she asked me to pick up Gwen, because there was a tree trimmer coming by and she couldn’t leave the house. And when she didn’t come by, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have Gwen stay for dinner. The kids wanted to...to have a sleepover, but it was a school night. I thought she’d agree to it. But instead, she showed up angry, and she just  _ blew up _ on me, and…” Sandra’s breathing hitched a little. “And then I was yelling at her, and she was yelling at me, and the  _ kids _ , they were up at the top of the stairs, just watching us...And Ben tried to make us stop fighting.” She laughed, and it came up full of sadness instead of joy. “God. Last summer, we...we almost had this same fight. I saw that look in his eyes then, in Gwen’s, and I stopped. And Lili stopped.” She pulled away from Carl’s arms and rubbed a hand at her eyes. “We didn’t stop today, Carl. We didn’t stop fighting, and...and they  _ ran away from us.” _

She cried then, and Carl held her tight, hurting as much as she was. 

It was the same argument, the same fight. It was one that even he and Frank were guilty of, Carl realized with increasing bitterness. Who were the better parents. Who knew the best way to raise their child.

“She was right.” Sandra sobbed. “Lili was right. I don’t know how to be a good mom. How can I be a good mom if my baby decides he’s better off running away from me?”

They were five years old, Ben and Gwen. Only five years old. Carl and Sandy were only twenty-five years old. Sandy’s pain, her fears, Carl knew them way too well. What did he know about being a good dad? It wasn’t like Max had ever shown him how to be one. Max taught him how to take care of himself. His long absences taught Carl how to be independent. There was nothing that he’d gotten from Max about how to raise a son. Only how not to.

It was all such a mess, and the one person who could have given him the answers he needed, his mom, was dead and gone, dead before the kids were even born. 

For once,  _ for once in his life, _ Max had been there when they needed him to be. He’d been there to grab Ben and Gwen and hold them tight when this all happened. He’d given them a safe place, if a little more cramped and crowded than a regular house, to stay at. 

But he still hadn’t given Carl the answers he needed. Just loose instructions. To work it out. To end the fighting. How?

 

He wondered if Frank and Lili were having the same conversation. He wondered if his brother and his sister-in-law had the same worries and fears that he and Sandy did. 

Somehow, he got Sandra up on her feet and out of Ben’s room, walked her into theirs. He sat her down on the side of the bed, looked into his wife’s drawn, pale face, and came to a decision.

Carl Tennyson picked up the phone and dialed his brother. It was late. 

Frank picked up midway through the second ring.  _ “Hello?”  _ His older brother’s voice said, rough and coarse. 

Rough and coarse from crying, Carl realized.

“Frank?” Carl said, pausing. “Could...could Sandy and I come over tomorrow morning? To talk?”

_ “Carl? I...Yeah. Yeah, that’d be...that’d be good, I think. We need to talk.”  _ His older brother paused.  _ “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” _

“Sandy can’t.” Carl admitted.

_ “Lili’s hurting too.”  _ Frank added.  _ “I just...How did it get this bad, Carl?” _

“I don’t know, brother.” Carl sighed. “I just want to fix it.”

_ “Dad’s lessons. Stand by your work, and clean up your own messes.” _ Frank chuckled once.  _ “I think we’ve got some muffin mix we could whip up if you want to come for breakfast. Could you…” _

“Mom’s sausage, egg and cheese casserole?” Carl cut in with a smile. Verdona Tennyson was gone, but she’d taught her boys how to cook a few things so they wouldn’t be hopeless, and Carl had figured out breakfast years ago. Maybe one of her favorite dishes would bring her spirit back long enough to solve their problems. “I can manage. I’ll make it how you like it too, with parmesan sprinkled in.”

_ “See you at nine then.” _ Frank said, and hung up. Carl went back to Sandra’s side, hugged her again. 

“It’ll be okay, Sandra.” Carl promised her. “We’re going over to their house tomorrow morning. We’re going to talk this out. We’re going to  _ fix this.” _ Because that was what he did, Carl knew. He fixed things. He just hoped that there was enough of his mom in him to help him fix people and not just things.

Sandra folded into him, and the two slumped back against the bed with Sandy tracing a finger on his arm.

“I’m sorry.” She apologized, shaken and sad and so very tired. 

“It’ll be okay.” Carl said again, and kissed her forehead. “It’ll be okay.”

 

***

 

_ March 16th, 1993 _

_ 9:14 A.M. _

  
  


Somewhere around this pond, Max Tennyson knew, he’d find a familiar tree if he looked hard enough. Of course, he wasn’t about to go wandering off and leave the kids on their own. Hell, he wasn’t about to leave them in the  _ Rustbucket _ alone if he could help it. And there was the matter of being busy with fishing.

The pond was big enough and deep enough that you could take a small rowboat out to the middle of it. For this trip, like he usually did when he was by himself, lawn chairs at a flat bit of shoreline on the west side of the pond worked well enough. He sat in one, and Ben and Gwen were huddled up side by side on the other. He only had regular fishing poles, so he held one and let Ben and Gwen take turns holding a second one. He’d been tempted to give them each a fishing line of their own, but as small as they were, it would have overwhelmed them. They managed well enough sharing one, thankfully, and weren’t fighting over it as much as he had thought they might. Sharing was often a hard lesson for kids.

“You wanna hold it for a bit, Gwen?” Ben asked.

“No, it’s okay. You hold it some more.” Gwen said, leaning back in the adult-sized lawn chair and yawning. 

Max chuckled. No, sharing wasn’t the problem with them. He spooled out a little more line and let his bobber drift with the wind-influenced ripples along the surface. The only thing that had gone as expected so far with the fishing trip was that Gwen got a little grossed out when he set the worm on the hook. Ben, naturally, had wanted to do it himself, but even Max had limits where safety was concerned. 

“You doing all right over there, you two?”

“When do we get to fish?” Ben asked impatiently.

“We are fishing, Ben.”

“Nuh uh!” The boy pouted a little. “We just sittin’ here, watching!”

“Ah. Yes, I see what you mean. But it’s still fishing, Ben.”

“It is?” Ben blinked at that. “How?” That got Gwen’s attention as well, and the two looked at him with the same green eyes as their grandmother, earnestly seeking an answer.

Max took a bit to answer. “Adults...they have a lot to do.” He explained. “I know that you two like to run around and play a lot, and when you do that, don’t you lose track of time?”

Gwen nodded hesitantly.

“Well, adults work and they have chores and errands. Things they have to do. And a lot of adults, when they get that busy, they forget to slow down. They forget to think about what’s really important.” 

“Did you forget, Grandpa?” Gwen asked, and Max felt a sharp sting of hurt. Because he absolutely had.

“I did. For a while.” He admitted quietly. “So when I come out here to fish, I try to slow down. Sometimes I’ll just sit here and let my mind wander. I just enjoy being out here in the wilderness.”

“Wildermess?” Gwen said. “What’s that?”

_ “Wilder-ness _ , pumpkin.” Max waved his free hand around them. “It means the outside. With lots of trees, and not so many people. It gives me a chance to...relax. To remember. To think.”

“About what?” Ben asked, shifting in the seat a little so he could scoot up to its edge and get a better hold on the fishing pole, which he lowered until the base of it was on the ground, letting him hold it by the spindly rod. 

He could have lied and said something else. Max had always been good at lying. He hesitated for once. Really thought about it.

“About your grandma. My Verdona.” He confessed, and his grandchildren both looked at him with wide eyes.

“Gramma?” Gwen said. “Mommy and daddy don’t talk about her.”

“Because we miss her. We all do.” Max said. “Sometimes, it hurts talking about people we miss.” It hurt him most of all. Some days, being in the graveyard and visiting her...he preferred to go at night. When nobody else was around to judge him for talking to her, for watching the starlight reflect off of her smooth black headstone. Still...He looked into their eyes and realized how wrong it was. How wrong they all were.

He smiled, looking at their faces. “You both have her eyes.” He started, reaching over and touching Ben’s nose with a finger before setting his hand on Gwen’s head. “And you have her hair, Gwen. Hair like fire. And when you smile and laugh...It’s like she’s back with us again.” Gwen flinched a little at that, and her lip quivered. Max and Ben both saw it coming, but Ben was faster than his granddad.

“I like you smiling, Gwen.” Ben blurted out. “Don’t cry. Please?”

“Okay.” The little girl said softly, sniffing once and hugging Ben. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay to be sad.” Max told them. “I’m sad a lot, too. I miss her.” And they both knew it, too. The whole family had gone to the cemetery on the 5th anniversary of Verdona’s passing, and he remembered seeing the kids, before…

And then Max didn’t remember much of anything, until his boys finally pulled him away from Verdona and walked him back to the van. He only saw the kids after. How sad they both looked as they watched him.

It wasn’t too surprising when Gwen slid out of the lawn chair she and Ben were sharing and skipped over to climb up into his lap. The hug wasn’t a surprise, either, but he loved it anyways.

“Don’t be sad, Grandpa.” Gwen said, her face buried in his shoulder. Max closed his eyes and held his granddaughter with both arms, his own fishing pole dropped and forgotten. “Please?”

Max let out a soft laugh. “I’m working on it.”

 

The tender moment was interrupted when Ben let out a wild shout, and the sound of the fishing line playing out made Gwen pull away from the hug and look over to her cousin.

“Grandpa! Grandpa!” Ben exclaimed, his eyes wide in panic. “Whaddo I do? Whaddo I do?”

“You’ve got a fish on the line, Ben! You have to reel it in!” Max said, setting Gwen down and walking over to him, grabbing the rod and holding it steady. “Put your hands on the handle, one on the reel! You want me to help, or…?”

“No, lemme do it!” Ben yelped, moving his hands down. Once Max was sure he had a grip on it, he let go, and there was a second of heart-stopping terror when the force of the fish on the line made Ben stumble forward a few steps before he planted his feet right and jerked back on the line, grunting from the strain.

“Come on, Ben!” Gwen hollered as she stood beside Max, caught up in the moment and bouncing on her heels. The boy was small, he’d always been a small, screaming fighter of a thing like all Tennyson boys were. He had a heart bigger than his body, and that was clearly on display now. He was struggling with the fishing rod, losing out to it. He could hang on to the pole, but he didn’t have enough strength to reel it in. And he still wanted to do it himself. No, he didn’t want grandpa helping him, but…

“Ben, why don’t you let Gwen help you catch that fish? You can catch it together, wouldn’t that be better?”

Ben was still grunting, but Max could see his mind spinning behind those fierce green eyes. “Yeah!” He finally blurted out. “Gwen! Help me!”

Like a shot, Gwen raced to his side. With Ben holding onto the fishing rod with everything he had in him, Gwen grabbed the reel, one hand on the spinner and the other on the mount, and started cranking in hard. Separately, they would have lost the fish on the line, but working together?

Max was so proud of them. It took them two minutes, but at last, the fish splashed up out of the water and back down, then splashed on the shore, and then was dangling on the end of the line.

“Great job, you two!” Max cheered, and got out a disposable camera he’d been hanging onto that still had a few exposures left. It was a greengill sunfish, about half a pound, and the kids crowded around it with wide eyes as they exulted in their victory. He took a photo of them while they weren’t paying attention, then got them to pose for the next shot. “That’s a keeper, all right. Your parents are going to love these photos.” He chuckled. 

Gwen poked at the dangling fish with one finger. “Can we keep it?” She asked him eagerly.

“Yeah! Can we?” Ben exclaimed. 

“Well, it is kind of small. You know, for eating.” Max explained. “A fish this small, it’s better to throw it back.”

“No! Wanna keep it!” Gwen insisted. “My fish!” Ben let out a squawk, and she looked at him apologetically before adding, “ _ Our _ fish!”

“What would you do with it?” Max asked, taking the fish off of the now de-wormed hook. He set their fishing rod to the side and bent down, holding the sunfish in his palms as it flopped wildly. “Are you going to eat it?”

“Ew! No!”

“Are you going to put it in a fish tank then, take care of it? Which wouldn’t work, you know. This is a wild fish. They don’t belong in a tank.” Max went on firmly. “I have one rule I learned from my dad. It’s a family rule, when it comes to fishing and hunting. You only kill things that you’re going to eat. And if we don’t put this fish back, that’s what’s going to happen, you two. It’s going to die. It needs water to live. If you don’t put it back, it’s going to die. You’ll have killed it.”

They blinked in horror at the idea, and Max nodded. “Hold out your hands for me.” They did so, palms up, and he plopped the sunfish into their grasp. They both gasped, but Max kept his gaze locked on them. “It’s your choice. Just think real hard first. Make sure it’s the right one.”

Ben and Gwen bit their lips and looked at each other, and then she got a  _ look _ on her face and nodded at him. Ben nodded back, pressing his lips together, and then took the fish, waddling back over to the water and dropping it back into the pond. It splashed, then took off like a shot, burying itself in the cloudy water.

“It’s gone.” Ben said sadly, and Gwen came over and grabbed his hand. 

“For now.” Max said, coming up behind his grandkids and putting his hands on their shoulders. “But we can always come back and try again. And that sunfish will be able to have other baby fishes now as well. And we have a photograph of it, even, so you two can show it off at school.”

“Show n’ tell!” Gwen shrieked, her sadness gone in a blink as she looked to Ben excitedly. “We can do it at show n’ tell!” Ben got swept up in her enthusiasm all too easily.

“I can’t wait to show Mommy and…” And Max winced when he saw the light drain out of both Ben and Gwen’s eyes. As they remembered why they were out here with their Grandpa Max. 

Gwen hugged him seconds later. “It’s okay, Ben.” She said, sniffling. “We can stay with grandpa.”

Max blinked. “Of course you can. I’m not your home, but you can always visit with your grandpa.”

“We ran away from home.” Ben said sadly. Max blinked, and something clicked into place.

They thought…

“Do you two think that because you ran away, that your moms and dads don’t want you anymore?” Max asked, shaken by the idea. When they both looked down at the ground and nodded, Max wanted to cry. He laughed instead and picked them up into a bearhug that lifted them both off of the ground. “Well, that’s just the silliest thing I’ve heard. Sport, pumpkin, your parents  _ love you. _ They’re never going to send you away, or tell you you can’t come home.” Especially not with what Max knew about his daughter’s  _ other _ parents. Sandra’s especially. “When you came out and stayed with me, they were so worried. They thought something had happened to you, that you were hurt.” Holding them together in his arms, he looked between the two, pouting seriously. “Does that sound like something they would do if they didn’t want you to come home?”

“No.” Ben admitted. “Are they mad?”

“They’re worried.” Max said, setting them back down on the ground. “But they know you’re safe. Your moms...they both love you. And they have some things they need to talk about.”

“The fighting?” Gwen asked. Max nodded.

“The fighting. And how it’s bad. And how they can stop it. Because they need to stop it.” Max scratched at his chin. “I think that’s what your mommies and daddies are doing today. Talking to each other. Apologizing. So that when you do come home, they won’t have anything to fight over anymore.”

Ben nodded. Gwen worried her fingers together, rubbing them over the backs of her hands. 

“It is not your fault.” Max said, needing them to know that. Needing them to believe it. They finally nodded, and he smiled. “But, you know? They need to say sorry to you for yelling at each other so much. You could say sorry to them for running away. You did scare them, after all.”

“Okay.” Gwen said timidly. “How, grandpa?”

“How do you say you’re sorry?” He mused, and looked around. Then he smiled. Spring came earlier to the landscape around Bellwood, a side effect of the unusual congruence of landscape and weather patterns in this part of California. He could see a lot of spring flowers popping up here and there. “Why don’t you two go pick some flowers for your moms? We can make them a proper apology bouquet. Flowers...and I have some small hershey bars that you two haven’t eaten yet. We could include those as well.” Their heads perked up, eager, and Max sighed and amended his offer. “We can eat some ourselves too, if you hurry.”

They cheered and raced off side by side to collect flowers, and Max was left chuckling as he sat back down in his chair, picked up his forgotten fishing rod, and reeled in the line.

At the end was a bobber with no fishing hook or lure or bait. Max smiled at the empty fishing line, chuckled once, and then cast it out onto the surface of the pond again.

They were such good kids. In time, they’d learn the more important lessons. And maybe he’d get them to go fishing without needing to catch any fish as well some day. It was never about the fish, after all.

It was about the peace and quiet of just being happy and content and remembering what was important.

 

***

 

_ Gwen’s House _

_ 9:32 A.M. _

  
  


Ladies didn’t fall apart. Ladies didn’t scream and throw insults and curses. Ladies held their composure, maintained their poise. It was the backbone of every lesson that the former Natalie Isabella Larrsen had learned from her mother. Yet she had done all of those things yesterday, with one irritation too many stacked up on top of another until she had gone off on Sandra for  _ wanting to give her a dinner with her husband in private. _

Ladies didn’t frighten their children so badly that they ran off, either, but that had happened as well. By any definition of her mother’s lessons, Lili Tennyson had screwed things up by the numbers.

Sitting next to Frank, with Carl and Sandra slumped onto the chairs opposite of them, she gripped the ceramic coffee mug in both hands and tried to put her thoughts together. Carl and Frank were the ones keeping the conversation going; Frank had made muffins, Carl had brought an egg casserole that was a perfect match for the one Lili remembered Verdona making for her back when she had been pregnant, and there was plenty of coffee to go around. Their husbands talked about how Frank was moving up at his law firm, and how Carl was pretty much set to land that supervisor’s spot for the county if things kept up as they were. They talked about old stories about Grandpa and about them as kids, offered suggestions and plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and basically just  _ talked _ .

They talked about everything except what had brought them all together that morning, subtly leaving it open to their wives to lean into the subject of why they were here, instead of Frank and Carl being at the office and Lili either outside gardening or doing volunteer work. 

But every time Lili looked over to Sandra and wondered if the blond-haired woman might start talking when the boys’ conversation hit a lull, Sandra would stir a little, look up, meet Lili’s eyes, and then just... _ wither. _ And then she’d look back down at the table, finger her glass of juice, and move bits of her breakfast around with a fork. She hadn’t taken very much; half a blueberry muffin, a small square of casserole. She’d gone after it like a bird, pecking at it and leaving more than half of it untouched. Well, unconsumed, at least. Her fork had shredded the casserole fairly well by now. Ben’s mother looked like she hadn’t slept a wink last night, and not all of the redness in her eyes was from that.

Lili knew she looked perfect, because even if she hadn’t slept well herself, and had kept getting up in the middle of the night to go stare into Gwen’s bedroom and look to where her baby girl should have been sleeping, Larrson ladies lived to a standard. Makeup, eyeliner, and good clothes were a must for breakfasts like this. She looked perfect.

She felt as miserable as Sandra looked, and for once, she regretted spending as much time getting dressed up. Sandra kept looking at Lili as though she had done something wrong, that she wasn’t as  _ good _ as Lili, that…

They were getting nowhere, and her daughter was still beyond her reach. Not entirely, though. If she wanted, she could  _ demand _ that Gwendolyn be returned to her. If she wanted to. But Lili remembered how Frank had looked at her last night, with that cold fire burning in his eyes, and it was like every nightmare she used to have back when Gwen was just a baby.

The dreams she’d have about going to that party with Frank back in College when he walked out on it. On her. And how, unlike how it had really happened, that he hadn’t just stormed off because he was tired of her lying to herself, but that he was tired of  _ her, period. _ In those nightmares, he disappeared from her life, and she kept on going to parties and lying to herself and either ended up married and divorced and bitter, or that she just drifted. That she never married Frank. That she never got pregnant and had Gwen. She would wake up from those nightmares and reach out to Frank, just to convince herself that it wasn’t real, that he was  _ here _ and then she would go and check on Gwendolyn and cry in the dark because her daughter was real too.

That look in Frank’s eyes last night had been what had made her stop arguing, stop fighting, and finally begin to look at herself, and Sandra, and the mess that they had made. She’d thought about it all night, about her daughter and her nephew and how they didn’t care about the petty arguments and fights about who the better mom was. They just didn’t want them fighting, period. They were so tired of their mothers arguing and fighting that they had done the unthinkable. And then Frank had looked at her with those eyes of his, and it cut her anger and blind reaction off at the knees. He only ever looked at her like that when she was  _ wrong. _ She wasn’t wrong very often, and not that badly. She had damaged something, and wasn’t sure if it could be fixed. 

She needed to say sorry. She kept waiting for Sandra to say something, so she could build up to it, but Sandra just kept looking more and more miserable. 

They had promised each other, before they lost Verdona, that they would be  _ sisters. _ Daughters abandoned by their families and invited into a new one. She’d been so close to Sandra once. They’d stayed close up until preschool, and then…

Damnit. Why was it so hard to  _ apologize? _ Lili knew why, of course. Larrson pride. Ladies didn’t make a mess this terrible. To apologize for it would mean…

Would mean…

Lili shut her eyes, and tried to think of the memory of Verdona. Months ago before the kids had started kindergarten, Sandra had evoked the memory of the woman they both clung to as a surrogate mother and stopped another fight cold. If Verdona were here, what would she say now?

_ What’s more important, Lili Flower? Your pride? Or your family? _

An easy question with a simple answer. If she had but the strength to say it. 

 

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” She blurted out, and everyone at the table stirred and looked at Lili. She pressed her hands against the table and curled her fingers into the surface, forcing herself to look at Sandra. Forcing herself to not look away, as much as she wanted to. “It had been a trying afternoon, and I was frustrated, and...and you didn’t deserve that, Sandra. You were trying to do something nice for me. For us. I should have seen it.” Sandra just stared at her, eyes dull and hollowed out, as if not believing her.

_ Not enough, Lili Flower. You’re just dancing around it. _

 

Lili breathed out. Bit her lip. “I’m sorry.” She finally got out. “I’m sorry for it all. This is my fault.”

Sandra just blinked back at her, and Lili wondered if she was about to explode. What Sandra actually did shocked her.

“You said I was a bad mother.” Sandra said, and shut her eyes. “You were right.”

“Sandy, no!” Carl protested, pulling her into his arms. “You’re not, I swear you’re not!”

“My son  _ ran away _ from me. He ran away from his home.” Sandra hiccuped, and Lili could hear the hurt and the tears in her voice. “What do I know about being a good mom? Nothing! All I ever got from mine was rules, rules and  _ control _ until I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and my brother…” She crumbled at that. 

Lili felt her heart skip a bit as she stared at Sandra then, remembering something that Verdona had said to her once.  _ “I’ll try my damndest to be a better mother to both of you. God knows you both deserve one.” _ But Verdona had never told Lili  _ why _ she had said that, and Lili, young and hurting and fragile, just dismissed it as some offhand comment, meant for her more than Sandra.

But it wasn’t. She could see that now. Lili still saw her parents. Gwen was a part of their lives. Lili had never met Sandra’s, and so far as she knew, they had never seen their grandson. 

There had been a reason for it she’d never pressed on. And she finally realized why.

Lili’s hand reached across the table, and she grabbed Sandra’s hand and squeezed it tight.

“We got pregnant at the same time.” Lili began carefully. “I never told you the story of what my parents said when I told them, did I?”

“Lili, you don’t…” Frank started, and she could see the pain in his eyes. She’d told him after, one night when not even living in the same house as Verdona and Sandra and the Tennyson brothers was enough to chase away the ghosts of her fears. It had hurt him then, and it still hurt to think about now, and not even their reconciliation when Gwen was born had fully healed the wound. Sandra had a wound of her own, Lili at last acknowledged, and it was nowhere near as healed up as her own.

“Yes, I do.” She told her husband firmly, and turned back to the other woman, who she had once called sister. “Sandra, please. Can you look at me? I don’t know if I can get through this more than once. Even now.” And Sandra stirred herself out of Carl’s arms enough to meet her gaze.

Lili breathed. “I was so happy when I got the news. Frank and I were going to have a baby, and...and I thought my parents would be just as happy. But they weren’t. My mother cried on the phone. She...she asked me to come home. She said that she and my father could ‘fix it’. I was pregnant with their grandchild, and it wasn’t a miracle to them. They weren’t happy about it. They weren’t happy with Frank. I made two choices of my own in my life, Sandra. I chose where to go to College, and I chose who to fall in love with.” Her lip quivered, and Lili ignored it. To hell with being a Lady.

“I didn’t know who my child was going to be, but I knew that they weren’t a  _ mistake _ . And I knew I didn’t want to lose them. I didn’t want to lose Frank. I liked my life. I could have gone back, and I would have lost everything. They threatened to cut me off. I quit school the next day. Frank was more important. My  _ child _ was more important. Didn’t mean I wasn’t lost. It didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt. I hurt so much. If I had been paying more attention...I should have seen just how much you were hurting too.” Lili’s eyes were blurry now, and she reached up to wipe at them with her napkin. “My parents came back and apologized. But yours never did, did they?”

Sandra shook her head. 

Lili exhaled. “I didn’t know.” She confessed. “Or I didn’t want to know. When you read all those parenting books and try to be a mother based on those, it drives me crazy. But I understand  _ why _ now. The only example you have any memory of is your own mother, and…”

“I’ll never be like her.” Sandra sobbed. “I can’t. I won’t do that to him.” 

So much of the blind rage Sandra had for Lili and her rules for Gwen finally clicked. 

 

“I’m not your mother either, you know.” Lili added gently. “I want Gwen to have everything I can give her, to be able to be anyone she wants to be. To do whatever she wants to do. I don’t want to limit her, Sandr...Sandy.” She corrected herself, dropping that edge of formality. It didn’t belong here. It wasn’t needed. “But you’re not a bad mother. Because if you are, then so am I.”

She sloughed off that vulnerable confession all at once, and let it sit there in the air between them. Sandy gasped and looked at her, and Lili just let herself smile sadly and cry in silence. To hell with it all.

“My daughter ran away from me, too.” Lili said. “They ran away from both of us.”

 

Neither one of them said anything after that, and they both let their husbands hold them, grounding them, giving them something to hold onto. Sandy was still a mess. Lili somehow found the strength to keep going.

“How do we fix this?” She asked her sister, and clung to that word with everything she had.  _ Sister. _

“I’m tired of fighting.” Sandra whispered. “I’m tired of arguing with you. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Lili froze up at that. “No.” She whispered. “No, Sandy. I don’t want to tell you what to do. I’m...I’m always  _ telling people what to do. _ You, Frank, G...Gwendolyn.” She shook her head. “Maybe I need to let go for once. And maybe you need to hold on more.”

“A middle ground.” Frank murmured, and she felt him move his head. Looking at his brother, maybe. “Not as strict as we’ve been.”

“A little firmer than we have.” Carl added. “Like mom was.”

“I’m sorry, Lili.” Sandra said, finally echoing the apology that Lili’d been strong enough to give. “But thank you.”

Lili laughed, and wiped at her eyes again. “My mother would say neither of us was acting much like a lady.”

Sandra sniffed and gave her a tenuous smile, and reached over to squeeze her hand back. “You’re a woman, though. And a mom.”

“So are you.” Lili replied, meaning it. Because maybe that was enough, in the end. To be there for the people you cared about, and to leave decorum to the side when it got in the way. “And if you want to have Gwen stay over for dinner next time to let me and Frank have a night off...I’ll remember that you aren’t doing it to prove you’re better than me. It doesn’t matter. It’s not a fight worth having. They don’t care who the better parents are. We shouldn’t either.”

Sandra sniffed and nodded, then got up from the table and came around, pulling Lili up into a tight hug. They stood there, rocking back and forth, and finally let all the arguments die. 

 

“I think we can call dad now, Frank.” Carl said. Lili and Sandra both laughed at that.

“God, yes.” Frank sighed. “Time to bring the kids home.”

 

***

 

_ Gwen’s House _

_ 4:15 P.M. _

  
  


Being told that their parents weren’t mad at them, being told that everything was okay and that their moms weren’t fighting anymore and they wanted them to come home should have been enough to make Ben and Gwen relax. But they were Tennysons, and just like Max, they were already putting more faith in actions than in words. When Max pulled the Rustbucket up to the sidewalk in front of Frank and Lili’s house and killed the engine, the kids didn’t squirm to get up and leave. They just sat in their seats, nervous and uneasy. Ben scratched at his arm, and Gwen twirled a finger in her hair. 

“Hey, you two. It’ll be all right.” Max counseled his grandkids, giving them an easy smile. “I heard from both your dads, after all. You’re not in trouble. Besides, we brought your moms flowers and chocolates. It’s hard to get a better apology than that.”

“What if they start yellin’ again?” Gwen asked him, nervous and on edge. 

“They won’t.” Max said firmly. “But next time you want to come visit grandpa? You don’t have to wander off. Just call me. I’ll come. You have my number now, both of you, right? Got my card in your pocket, Ben?” The boy patted his pants pocket, confirming it. “Good. Now come on, you two. Let’s get unbuckled. Up, up, up.”

He shuffled them to the middle of his old girl and had them grab up the small bouquets of wildflowers and the ziploc bags full of fun-size chocolate bars left over from when Max handed out treats last Halloween, and tried not to smirk as the two figured out how best to carry both without dropping either. They just stood there and looked up at him, and neither one of them moved to the side door. 

Well. He could be the brave one if he had to be. He’d done it before. He swung the door open and walked out first, then motioned for them to follow, and they trailed after him on unsteady legs. From the Rustbucket to the sidewalk and then past the gate in the fence around the yard, and up the concrete walkway to the front door…

The kids walked it like they were on their way to a prison cell.

 

Max pushed them ahead of him so they stood on the welcome mat, and then reached for the doorbell. Between the  _ ding-dong _ and the door opening took only about three seconds. It was Frank in the doorway, and he met Max’s eyes for a second as they both nodded at the same time before he looked down at Gwen and Ben. 

“Hey, baby girl. Hey, Ben. Welcome home.” He smiled at them. “What do you have there?”

“For mommy.” Gwen mumbled, holding up her bundle of flowers.

“To say sorry.” Ben added, struggling to not drop his own. 

Frank bent down on his knees to look at the two on their level. “Flowers and chocolates?” He glanced up at Max and smirked. “Grandpa’s idea, I take it?”

“I helped.” Max admitted, trying to let the kids take the lion’s share of the credit. “Can they come in?”

“Of course you can.” Frank said, standing back up and moving out of the way. “Ben? Gwen? Your moms are in the living room. Why don’t you go take those to them?”

The kids walked inside slowly with Frank behind them, and Max walked just past the front door and stood in the entryway, closing the door behind him. He saw Sandra and Lili, sitting on the biggest couch in Frank’s living room side by side...and though his angle was skewed, he could have sworn that they were even holding hands as they waited and watched their children walk up to them.

He tried to think back to the last time he’d seen his daughters do that. Max wasn’t sure, but he wanted to guess that it hadn’t happened since before Ben and Gwen had been born.

Sandra and Lili looked so fragile, sitting there. Like one angry word from their children would break them. When Frank had called him, he’d said that they (All of them, his boys and their wives all together) had worked things out. Frank hadn’t told him how badly they had taken it. 

His daughters watched with hopeful, hurting eyes as Ben and Gwen came up to them, handed over the flowers they’d collected and the chocolates they’d ransacked from the Rustbucket. 

“We’re sorry.” Ben said. “For running away.”

“You ssouldn’t fight.” Gwen added with just enough censure to make the apology a more conditional one.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t.” Lili said, looking at her little girl. “We talked about it. We’re going to stop fighting.”

“We didn’t think we were hurting you. We were wrong.” Sandra added, looking at Ben with hope. “Can you two forgive us?”

The kids nodded. “Can we come home?” Gwen asked unsteadily.

“Of course you can.” Lili said, setting her flowers aside and letting go of Sandra’s hand so she could scoop up her daughter. Sandra did the same for Ben, and the kids and their moms didn’t say much of anything then, they just kept hugging each other tightly.

“Don’t cry, mommy.” Max heard Ben say when Sandra started sniffling. The blond-haired woman laughed and held him even tighter. 

“It’ll be better, Ben. I promise. Just please,  _ please _ promise me you two won’t run off like that again. We were so worried about you.”

“Okay.” Ben grunted, relaxing once Sandra stopped hugging him so hard. “Okay, mommy.”

“Good.” Sandra kissed his forehead, then grinned. “Now. How would you two like to help us make dinner? You’ll have to wash your hands first, though; meatloaf gets very messy. And while we’re working, you can tell us all about what you did with Grandpa Max, okay?”

The kids hopped down and immediately started chattering away as they walked into the kitchen with their mothers, leaving Carl and Frank standing in the living room looking relieved and so very tired.

Max had hope that things would be better after this. They were off to a good start, at least, and if the kids did ever need a break, Ben had his phone number. It would keep the two of them from running off again, anyways.

He turned and opened the front door again, when Frank’s voice stopped him.

“Where are you going, Max?” 

“I…” Max turned and looked back at his boys, still standing in the middle of the living room. They seemed concerned. “I just thought that you all might want some time with the kids without me getting in the way. Besides, I did have them all day, and…”

“Dad.” Carl interrupted his rambling apology. “Unless there’s something critically important you have to go do, we want you to stay. Have dinner with us.”

“Are you sure, son?” Max blinked, his hand still on the doorknob, and looked over to Frank for confirmation.

His oldest boy nodded once. “We’re going to...try a family dinner tonight. The whole family. And that includes you, Max. If you want to stay.”

 

Max blinked a few times, and felt something settle into his chest that made him smile and close the door. “I’d like that.” He admitted, and went to join the rest of his family.

It had been a crazy 24 hours for them all, but as he and his sons went to go help out in the kitchen and join in the fun, Max thought that maybe it was a good thing that Ben and Gwen had decided to run off the way they had.

It took the kids leaving to bring the family back together.


	4. Chapter 3: The Kids Stop a Break-In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more for the readers over at FF Net, but I felt it was important to mention here as well.
> 
> 1) This is an AU of the LM-Verse. As such, while there are similarities between Shadows' main stories and my LM Sidestories, this is a beast of its own sort and should be considered SEPARATE from everything else we do that's Ben 10 related.  
> 2) There are no Anodites. There were never any Anodites in the LM-Verse because only the Original Series is canon and everything else we're borrowing or jossing piecemeal. Anodites are stupid. Magic's way better.  
> 3) This story is not one of our main priorities, as cute and cavity-inducing as it is. Shadows is finishing up LM Rebooted before he dives hard into Breaking Point, and I'm never at a loss for a writing project to be working on. Updates are infrequent, because we have plenty of other stories we're working on.

 

**Chapter 3: The Kids Stop a Break-In**

By Erico

* * *

_ Gwen’s House _

_ Wednesday, June 2nd, 1993 _

_ 9:27 A.M. _

  
  


Ben was happy that his mom and Gwen’s mom didn’t fight anymore. He was happier that it was summer, because that meant that he didn’t have to go to school to play with Gwen, he could just ask if she could come over, or she would ask her mom if he could. But this week, right here, had to be the  _ best week ever. _ His mommy and daddy were on a trip for daddy’s job. They’d wanted him to come along, but they said Gwen couldn’t, and he got mad about it. They’d asked him if he wanted to stay with Gwen and her mommy and daddy instead, and that sounded so much better. A whole  _ week _ staying over at Gwen’s house! 

They even let him stay in Gwen’s room. They’d tried setting up a squishy balloon bed for him on the floor, but it just didn’t feel right. After he’d rolled around on it for a while Sunday night and let Gwen have a turn bouncing on it, she’d pulled him up onto her bed, which was _lots_ comfier. Her mom woke them up in the morning and talked to him about sleeping in his own bed, which confused him and then made him angry when Gwen got angry. The next night, he _tried_ to sleep on the balloon bed again and kept wiggling, but he stayed like Aunt Lili wanted. Gwen was smart though. Really smart. She just hopped down and cuddled with him and Furry Freddy until he got sleepy, and the next morning when Aunt Lili tried to argue with them, Gwen got the bossy look on her face and told her mom that Ben did _exactly_ what she’d wanted. Gwen must’ve won, because last night there hadn’t been a balloon bed on the floor, and Aunt Lili tucked them in and didn’t say anything.

“Ha!” he cried out, snatching up a puzzle piece from the big pile. He and Gwen were working on a puzzle full of kitties and yarn balls, and she’d been looking for just the right color of green to go with the orange kitty fighting with the green yarn ball in the corner. “Got one, Gwen!”

“Lemme see, lemme see!” She was grabbing at his hand even before he could shove it in front of her, and he flattened his hand out so she could take it from him. She squinted at it and then grinned, moving it over to the puzzle and trying a few spots. Ben went back to the pile and started digging again, and a few seconds later she let out a happy noise. It must’ve fit. 

Ben wasn’t as good at puzzles as Gwen was. The ones from preschool hadn’t been hard; put the wooden fruits in the wood board. But Gwen’s mom didn’t have that kind of puzzle, or even one that had 20 pieces, or 30. The puzzle  _ they _ were working on right now had  _ two-hunnred _ pieces. And Aunt Lili kept saying that there were puzzles that were even  _ bigger. _

He found another piece with green yarn on it and went to put it in, but Gwen grabbed for it. “Hey!” He sputtered, as she took it and slapped it into place. “I was gonna do that one!”

“But I saw’d where it was gonna go.” She told him with a frown.

“Did he give you that piece, Gwendolyn, or did you just take it from him without asking?” Aunt Lili said, walking into the room and smiling down at them. They had the puzzle spread out over her daddy’s desk and he and Gwen were standing up on top of  _ big, huge books _ that smelled old and were full of dust to look over the top of it. 

Gwen got a pouty look on her face, and her mom sighed. “Gwen. We  _ ask _ for things. We don’t just take them.”

“I know. I’m sorry, mommy.” Gwen mumbled.

“You didn’t take anything from  _ me,  _ Gwendolyn.” Her mom said, and then looked over to Ben. “Apologize to Ben.”

She turned, still pouting, and Ben just blinked and wondered why it was such a big deal. His feelings were a little hurt, sure, but she was  _ Gwen. _ Gwen was  _ always _ bossy. Why didn’t Aunt Lili see it? Gwen must’ve felt bad, because she hugged him. Gwen always gave the best hugs, even better than his mommy and daddy did. Even better than Grandpa did.

“... ‘m sorry, Ben.” She mumbled into his shoulder, and he hugged her and patted her back like his daddy sometimes did for him. 

Gwen’s mommy hummed to herself, nodding as she looked at them. Her eyes were all crinkly. “Listen, you two. I have to take something over to Mrs. Jansen’s house a few blocks away. You remember Mrs. Jansen, sweetie?”

“With all da wittle dollies?” Gwen said.

“The figurines, yes.” Gwen’s mom said. “Would you two like to keep working, or would you like to come along? If you want to stay though, there are rules.” Aunt Lili always had rules, but Ben was getting used to that. He looked at Gwen and she looked back, and he realized she wanted him to talk.

“Stay? Please?” Ben asked, and Gwen’s face brightened up. So. Right choice after all.

“Okay.” Aunt Lili ruffled his hair and smiled. “Rules, then. No touching any of daddy’s things, Gwen. You know what’s his in here and what isn’t. You can read from your bookshelf if you want to…” Ben made a face, and she laughed. “Or not. I’ll only be gone for 10 minutes or so. If you’re thirsty, you can wait until I get back. I’ll fix you both a snack and some juice then. So stay  _ out _ of the kitchen. If you get tired of the puzzle, you can go play in Gwen’s room. Okay?”

Ben nodded his head and so did Gwen. He wasn’t good at puzzles like Gwen, but he  _ wanted _ to beat this one. He had a good feeling about it.

Aunt Lili gave them both another hug and kissed their foreheads. Ben grumbled and rubbed at the spot, and Gwen’s mom stood up and crossed her arms. “Now. Last things. If someone rings the doorbell…”

“Don’t answer, ‘cause there’s no adult home.” Gwen chirped back.

“And if the phone rings?” Aunt Lili added, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t answer it.” Ben said, because even  _ his _ mommy had those two rules.

“Good.” Gwen’s mommy turned around and left the room. She came back in a second later, sighing. “And I probably don’t have to remind you two, but don’t go running off to visit Grandpa, all right? He’s coming over tomorrow anyways.”

Ben didn’t say anything, even though he really wanted to yell that he  _ wouldn’t, _ because Aunt Lili and his mommy weren’t fighting anymore. And they wouldn’t just  _ go _ now, they’d call first. Grandpa’d made them remem’rize his number, after all.

Gwen’s mommy nodded again and left for real this time, and Gwen tugged on his sleeve. 

“I need orange for the kitties.” She said, and Ben got back to work in digging through the pile.

 

They got in some more pieces and the house was quiet aside from the two of them, and the tree outside which made noises in the wind and made the light coming in through the window over the couch dance a little. The left side of the puzzle actually was looking like the picture on the box now, and they were looking at the gray kitty with the purple yarn on the right when the doorbell rang.

Ben looked over at Gwen, a little surprised that something else was happening. She seemed dazed for a second or two before she shook her head and got that  _ I know what I’m doing _ look on her face again. “Doorbell. We don’t answer.” She said, and Ben nodded. It was a rule, after all. He reached for another puzzle piece and was about to hand it over to Gwen when they heard something else. It sounded like something breaking, even louder and worse than the sound that a water glass he’d dropped had made back home when it hit the kitchen floor. His mom had panicked a little and scooped him up, taking him out of the kitchen while his daddy had gone after a broom. 

He didn’t realize that he’d frozen up until Gwen’s hand grabbed his and squeezed tight. He looked at her and his tummy felt awful, because she was  _ scared. _ Gwen never got scared, Gwen wasn’t afraid of anything! 

She was scared now, though. Scared of that noise. Ben was scared of it too.

He got even more scared when they heard someone walking around downstairs, stepping on broken glass that got smushed into the floor.

“Ohh Mrs.  _ Tennyson,  _ come out, come out wherever you are!” A man, a  _ stranger _ yelled out loudly. Ben heard Gwen suck in a big gulp of air, saw her eyes go wide and he  _ knew _ that she was getting ready to scream.

Something told him that that was the  _ wrong _ thing to do. He reached out and covered her mouth with his other hand, stopping her. Her scared eyes jerked towards him, and Ben shook his head. Gwen blinked a lot, and he realized she was starting to cry. But she didn’t scream, even when he pulled his hand back. She pressed her lips together tightly and nodded, both of them turning to the open doorway of the upstairs library while the  _ stranger,  _ the bad man kept stomping away downstairs.

Gwen was scared, and Ben was scared, but something  _ burned _ inside of him and told him that he had to do something. He had to keep Gwen safe. No matter what. She was squeezing his hand so tight that it hurt. He squeezed back to get her attention.

He tried to be brave, and sound brave, but his throat felt funny. He ended up whispering when he told her,  _ “We hafta hide. Be quiet now.” _

They both jumped when the man downstairs swore loudly and kicked something over. “Hiding upstairs, are we? Fine! Just like every other woman then, always hiding!”

Ben was moving even before the bad man was done talking, and the sound of his loud crashing footsteps helped to cover up the noise of them darting from the library into Gwen’s room across the hall. Ben turned to close the door and froze up when the doorknob  _ clicked _ into place.

The footsteps stopped then too. Gwen had both of her hands over her mouth then, and was shaking in place. Ben was trembling like a leaf, and the sick feeling in his tummy wasn’t going away. The burning got even hotter. It told him to keep moving. He grabbed Gwen and tucked her under her bed, jostling it a little as he slipped underneath it too, and Furry Freddy fell off the top of the bed and landed on the floor in front of them. Gwen reached for his hand again and held on tight, even as she clapped her other hand over her mouth. She was making noises like she wanted to cry.

“It’ll be okay.” Ben whispered to her. He had to protect her. He had to keep her  _ safe. _

 

The bad man was upstairs now. He must’ve been touching the wall. Hitting it with a fist while he kept on talking.

“It won’t do you any good to call the police, Mrs. Tennyson. I cut the phone line. Didn’t want anyone  _ interrupting _ me. See, your husband wasn’t a very nice man. He took my wife away from me. Hid her. Isn’t right, you know.” The bad man in the house said loudly. “A man’s wife is his  _ life, _ after all. And since he took mine away from me, I figure I should take his away from him. He’s a lawyer, after all. Seems only fair. Seems like  _ justice, _ doesn’t it?” He was shouting now from out in the hallway.

_ Don’t scream. Don’t scream. He’ll find you. He’ll find Gwen. He’ll  _ **_hurt Gwen._ **

Gwen was pressed up tight beside him as he lay on his stomach, the both of them hiding underneath her bed and hoping that the bad man wouldn’t find them. That the bad man would just  _ go away. _ She was shaking so bad now, and her head was buried into his side.

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” He kept whispering, so soft that he didn’t think he was talking at all.

A door banged open, and Gwen flinched and hid into his side even tighter. 

“You’re not going to hide from me forever! I know you’re alone, Mrs. Tennyson. I saw your  _ husband _ driving off to work. Going into work at ten in the morning? Miserable bastard keeping banker’s hours while you get to stay home and play happy little homemaker. It’s not fair. It’s not FAIR!” Another door banged open, closer this time.

The bad man was going to find them. He was going to find them and he was going to hurt them. They couldn’t run. Hiding wasn’t going to be enough. He wasn’t strong enough to stop him. He wasn’t strong enough to save Gwen.

Ben started crying too then, with Gwen huddled up tight beside him. He looked out and saw Furry Freddy lying on the floor just in front of them. Furry Freddy always made everything better. He’d hold Furry Freddy at night and the bear kept the monsters away. When Gwen had monsters, she’d borrow it from him.

Ben blinked, realizing something then. Furry Freddy made the monsters at night go away. And Furry Freddy could dance. He’d danced before when they were littler, when he and Gwen held hands and the stars came out.

“Furry Freddy.” Ben whispered, and Gwen stopped crying to look at him. He turned his head a little and looked back at her. “Furry Freddy will save us.” He squeezed her hand again, and this time, the hurt in his tummy eased off. The burning became a tingle. 

He remembered what it felt like when Furry Freddy had been dancing in the air with the blue and green stars all around them that turned purple when they touched. He tried to remember that feeling again as he held on tight to Gwen’s hand, and a little bit later, the tingling he remembered started to come back. It wasn’t as quick, but it was there.

“Come on, Gwen.” He whispered to her. “Furry Freddy will save us.” He squeezed her hand again as the first of the green stars poofed around them. A blue star followed it a second later.

Sniffling, shaking, Gwen held onto his hand and didn’t let go. “Fur - Furry Freddy’ll save us.” She said back to him. And she kept saying it, just like he was. It passed between them, until they started saying it together, closing their eyes tight.  _ Furry Freddy Will Save Us. Furry Freddy Will Save Us. _

They weren’t looking, but Ben felt like he could feel the stuffed bear roll over and stand up. He had his eyes shut tight, but he felt the soft and raggedy arm of the thing brush over his head, and a bit later, he almost felt it touch Gwen’s head as well. He didn’t let go of Gwen for a second. He didn’t stop saying it either.  _ Furry Freddy Will Save Us. _

 

The door to Gwen’s bedroom was smashed and swung in with a loud bang as it bounced off of the wall, and Gwen screamed.

Ben heard Furry Freddy turn around and make angry loud bear noises as he moved away from the bed.

He heard the bad man screaming after that, and he still didn’t open his eyes. He just held Gwen close and kept thinking about Furry Freddy. He kept thinking hard about their stuffed bear saving them, and he didn’t let go of Gwen’s hand.

 

***

 

_ 11:08 A.M. _

  
  


Frank Tennyson had thought that he’d heard the worst thing ever six years ago when he got a phone call from his brother brokenly telling him that his mother’s house had burned down and she’d been in it. Then he had thought the worst thing he’d ever heard had been the frantic call from his wife in the spring, telling him that Ben and Gwen were  _ missing. _

The call that had forced him to beg the judge for a recess when the hand-written message was delivered by the pale-faced bailiff topped everything, because he couldn’t think of anything else aside from  _ getting home. _

**The police have been trying to reach you. There was a break-in at your home. Your wife asked you to come as soon as you could.**

 

As soon as he could meant excusing himself from the case when the hard-assed judge refused his motion for recess and then passing the rest of it off to the other junior partner he’d been paired with. As soon as he could meant going fifteen miles an hour faster than the speed limit with a  _ police escort _ that had been parked outside the courthouse and who had volunteered to get him there, sirens wailing. As soon as he could meant that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t  _ think _ and couldn’t react as the black and white screamed through the quiet streets of a mid-morning Bellwood, blazing through every red light that they could get away with.

Frank Tennyson didn’t find himself stopping until the police car pulled up just outside of the cordon of three other cruisers that were on-site along with an ambulance. He stared at the ambulance with its flashing lights and felt his world drop out from underneath him. On wooden legs, he stepped out of the cruiser’s passenger seat and stumbled forward, almost falling. 

Strong arms were around him and holding him up a second later. “They’re okay, Frank. They’re all okay.”

He shuddered as he placed the voice, and the arms. Those arms had always been so strong.

“D- Dad?” And there was Max Tennyson, wearing another of his gaudy red and white Hawaiian shirts and holding him up, strong and steady as ever.

“They’re safe. None of them are in that ambulance.”

It all finally caught up to him, and Frank collapsed. His father let out a little noise and held him up until the police officer who’d drove him home could come around and help him up.

“Sir, do you need medical attention?” The policeman asked worriedly. Max shook his head.

“The only thing he needs is to get inside and see that his family is  _ safe.” _ Max ground out, helping him along. “Come on, son. They’re in the living room. The police will want to talk to you, but this is more important.”

Frank looked up and saw Max’s RV sitting down the street, parked in what looked like a rush with the nose half up onto the curb in front of a fire hydrant. “You...you’re going to get a ticket.” The old man just laughed. 

“This is more important.” Max said. 

“What are you even  _ doing _ here, dad?” Frank asked in a daze. 

Max didn’t stop walking him towards the house, and Frank inhaled sharply when he saw the kitchen window smashed in and marked off with yellow police tape.

“I heard it on the police band. Somebody heard the guy screaming. Soon as they said the address...Son,  _ Hell _ couldn’t stop me from getting here quick as I could. But it was all over by the time I got here. The kids are safe. Lili’s safe. The guy who did this, he’s sitting in that ambulance banged up and bleeding and screaming his fool head off. Least, that’s what he looked like when the paramedics wrapped him up and hauled him into it.”

_ “Lili _ did that to him?” Frank whispered disbelievingly. Max hesitated, and a moment’s worth of panic passed through him until Max shook his head of gray hair.

“No. No, Lili wasn’t home when the guy broke in. The kids were upstairs. I don’t know for sure, I’ve been out here keeping an eye on the perimeter and waiting for you so I haven’t spoken with the kids or with Lili much, but if I had to guess, he did that to himself breaking into the house through the window. Must’ve been high as a kite.” Frank shook his head, not quite believing it. “Frank, there is  _ nothing _ you could have done.” Max told him quietly. 

Frank wanted to argue that. There was plenty he could have done to stop this. “A security system. Better windows…”

Max sighed and pulled him along gently to the front door. “That, I can help you with. I know a few guys from my plumbing days who were good with that kind of stuff. But right now, your wife and the kids  _ need you. _ They need you to hug them and tell them that everything’s going to be all right.”

Just like Max used to when he was a boy, Frank remembered. When Max would come home from work tired and with a smile that brightened up when he saw mom and him and his brother.

“Okay. I - I’ll do that.” Frank nodded. “Can you…”

“I’ll keep the police back for a while, they can give you a few minutes. I haven’t given my witness statement yet anyways, so that’ll give them something to chew on.”

“Thanks, dad.” Frank found himself smiling at the man out of sheer relief. Max paused when they reached the front door, and Frank frowned. “What?”

“...You haven’t called me  _ dad _ in a long time.” Max said quietly. That made Frank pause and think and realize that the old man was right. Bitterness from too many days away from home, and too many broken promises as to when he’d be home. 

“You’re here now.” Frank said, finding comfort in that. Max’s eyes misted up a little. “Think you could stay for a while? You can park the RV out front if you want, but I think we’d all feel better if you stuck around.”

The smile his father gave him was a thin and shaky thing, full of hope and grief all mixed together. “Yes. Absolutely. I  _ was _ coming over for dinner tomorrow anyways.” Frank held out a hand to him, and Max looked at it for a bit before shaking it with a soft laugh. “God. Go on in already, you keep this up I’m going to hug you and you haven’t wanted a hug from me in years.” He gave Frank a wink and turned around to mosey towards the police at the white picket fence again.

 

Frank breathed in and out, then stuck his key into the lock of the front door, flipped the deadbolt, and went inside. He found Lili and Gwen and Ben all huddled together on the couch in the living room, his best girl’s face so pale that it made her hair shine like dull blood. Ben and Gwen were beside her, hugging Ben’s old teddy bear tight between them and not saying much of anything. They all looked up when he came in, and whatever lid they’d had on their emotions flew off when they saw him.

Lili broke out into sobs as he rushed over to them, falling into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was only gone for  _ ten minutes _ and…”

“It’s okay. We’re okay.” Frank promised her, holding her tight and looking over her shoulder to Ben and Gwen. They were safe. Just like his father had promised him. The kids were safe. “They’re okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve taken them with me. I should’ve...”

Frank kissed her to stop her from blaming herself anymore. “I’m going to tell you what my dad just told me. There was  _ nothing _ that you could’ve done. We’re going to get through this.”

“Oh, god. Carl and Sandra, I - I haven’t called them yet.”

“I’ll call them.” Frank told her.  _ Later. When we’re all calmed down. _ He had other things to worry about first, and he was looking at them. “Gwen? Ben? Are you okay?”

Neither one said a word. Gwen just squeezed in closer to Ben, holding the stuffed bear in her arms as she burrowed into her cousin’s side, and Ben looked back at him and nodded.

“When the - when the bad guy came in, what happened?”

Gwen squeezed the bear harder and whimpered a little. Ben was trembling himself, but held it together. 

“We hid. And Furry Freddy saved us.”

Frank let go of Lili then, but only so he could move around to the other side of the couch, putting the kids between them. He and Lili scooped the little ones up and held them tight, and they all cuddled together.

“You - don’t you have work? You had a case today.” Lili said, a minute’s worth of quality cuddling later that, for once, the kids didn’t try and wriggle out of.

“I’m right where I need to be.” Frank told his wife, and found comfort in the words and the promise in them.

 

***

 

_ Gwen’s House _

_ 8:20 P.M. _

  
  


The kids were upstairs with Lili getting ready for bed, and as exhausted as Frank felt, he should’ve been up there as well. But the weight of the day and what he’d learned kept him from doing so. He stood out on the front step of his house and stared out into a street that was empty now aside from his father’s old RV, properly parked at last. The neighbors had all been prowling around earlier in the day, drawn in by the sight of so many police cruisers and flashing lights. Dealing with the questions that would come from them was something he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with. But he’d take the questions over the alternative.

He’d come so close today to losing his daughter. It would have broken him. It would have shattered Lili. And Ben…God. He’d called Carl and Sandra an hour ago, and his brother had been ready to leave the conference early and come haring back. Only the news that their father was there and helping to keep an eye on things had kept Carl from doing something that might’ve put his career at risk. Not that Frank didn’t understand why his brother had almost done it.

He walked out of a court case today. The firm would understand, the senior partners weren’t  _ that _ heartless, especially once he would tell them about the circumstances of it all. 

They’d probably be willing to offer their services as prosecutors to the district attorney’s office pro bono, for what had happened. His firm looked after their own, or at least that was what Mr. Moreland had said.

 

Problems for another day. He went back inside the house and paused when he heard his father talking to someone in the kitchen. It was too quiet and muffled for him to pick it out, and he snuck a little closer to listen in.

Max Tennyson was alone, standing by the ruins of what had been the large kitchen window over the countertops with his bag cellular phone in one hand and the receiver with its curly black cord pressed up on the side of his head as he looked at the thick plastic sheeting that covered the wound. Max had hung it up himself earlier in the afternoon before ordering pizzas for them all.

“...Could really use you here.” Max said to whoever he was speaking with. “It broke. It wasn’t strong enough, they tore right through it. You need to…” He paused and tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Look, I’m not sure  _ how _ they did it, I’m not the one with the talent for it. All I know is…”

Frank leaned in a little more, and the shifting of his weight caught an errant floorboard that creaked. It was enough to make his old man tense up and spin around with wide eyes, and then just as quickly offer a weak smile as he relaxed. “I’ll call you back tomorrow. Frank just walked in. Yeah. Uh-huh. Night.” He set the receiver back onto its dock in the bag and closed the velcro flap. “Sorry, son. I thought I was staying quiet there. I didn’t wake you up, I hope?”

“Just making a last walk around the house before bed.” Frank said to him. He looked down at the bag phone. “Who were you talking to?”

Max paused for a second before speaking. “One of my old buddies. The one that’s good with windows. I thought they’d have some ideas on how to fix what got broken, but I guess it’s not the kind of problem they can solve in the middle of the night. I’ll call them back tomorrow, we’ll get it figured out. I should be able to put in a replacement for you by this weekend.”

“You don’t have to do that, dad. The insurance will cover it, and…”

“And how long would it take them to get someone to send out a claims agent to get an estimate and then authorize a window repair guy?” Max shook his head. “I’ll feel better once I know you’ve got more than a sheet of plastic here keeping out the elements. Let me help you out, Frank.”

“All right, all right.” Frank held up his hands in surrender, smiling slightly. “If you insist.” He yawned, and to his surprise, so did his father. “You’re as tired as I am, old man. You sleeping in the house tonight? We’ve got plenty of blankets and pillows if you want the couch, or I could get the air mattress…”

“No, my bed in the old girl will suit me fine.” Max dismissed the offer. “But I’ll be right outside, and I’ll help you put breakfast together tomorrow. The phone company’s sending out a repairman first thing also.”

“Good.” Frank moved to the kitchen table and sank down onto one of the chairs, sighing. Max took another one and looked at him.

“So. What did the police tell you about the break-in?”

“Enough.” Enough to make Frank feel sick all over again. “The bast - the guy who did it, he’s the ex-husband of an old client of mine. Abusive, heavy drinker. She got away from him the last time he came after her swinging, filed for divorce while she was still being treated in the emergency room for her broken arm and the lacerations on her head. My firm picked her up as one of our pro-bono cases, and I volunteered to take it on. As part of the divorce proceedings, we were able to argue with the judge that she didn’t have to appear in court, that a videotaped statement of intent was enough. Drove her ex right up the wall during the court case, the judge had to have the bailiff haul him out of there. He kept screaming about how it was wrong to take his wife from him, how she was a coward for not coming and looking him in the eye when she said all those things. I didn’t think much about him after the fact. He got tossed into jail for contempt of court, the judge signed off on the divorce papers, and the ex-wife went running for the hills. Left the state. I think she was headed for Las Vegas. Not sure if she stayed there. But her ex…”

Frank realized he was rambling, but he didn’t stop himself, he  _ couldn’t, _ he realized. And his dad didn’t look terrified, didn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t say the dumb little things most people did to offer hollow reassurance. He just sat there and watched him, and waited for Frank to get it all out on his own time. To talk, or to stop talking. 

“Why aren’t you stopping me?” Frank whispered. Max pursed his lips.

“Back in...in the Air Force. Sometimes we just needed to talk about the things we’d been through and seen. The base doctors had their way of trying to pick through our heads. We just wanted somebody to listen and not judge us. To let us deal with it in our own time. So that’s what I can do for you. Just listen. If you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to. If you need to get it all off your chest so you can sleep tonight, then that’s what you’ll do. I’m here for you either way.”

His dad had always been full of life lessons. Lessons about taking responsibility and cleaning up your own messes, about taking pride in your work. From his example, Frank and Carl had learned other lessons about being there for their kids and their spouses like Max never was.

Gwen and Ben were five and a half years old, and Max Tennyson was still teaching him things. So he took a deep breath, drummed his fingers on the table, and kept on talking. Because his dad was right. He’d never sleep tonight if he didn’t tell  _ someone, _ and though he’d share the full story of this mess with Lili later, he couldn’t do it tonight. Because neither one of them would sleep then.

“I’m not sure how he found my house. Our address is unlisted. The firm’s employment records are kept in a locked file cabinet. The detectives are guessing that he must’ve gotten the records of the court case and found out my full name and the name of my firm. That he must’ve...must’ve waited to see me come out of work or go into work to get the make and model of my car. He could have followed me home some night afterwards, found out where I lived that way.” He took several slow breaths. “He...The kids heard him. He was going to hurt Lili. In his mind, I’d taken his wife away from him. So he was going to take mine from me. They found a knife at the bottom of the steps, a broken bottle of chloroform in his pocket. Rope out in his car. He waited until my car left this morning, must have figured I was driving it. But Lili was driving it, her van’s in the shop, and...”

The haunted look was back in his eyes, he knew it. “The...There was a hole in the drywall up in Gwen’s room from the doorknob. Dad, I need to know. Where were the kids? Lili said that you were already here when she got back. That you were downstairs in the living room with them glued to your sides and calling the police on your phone when she saw the broken window and came running in terrified.”

Max closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “They were in Gwen’s room. Hiding under the bed.” Frank let out a sob at that. God. That miserable son of a bitch had come so close to hurting his family. His father’s hand reached over and settled on top of his fist. “He didn’t get to them. He didn’t find them. He must’ve left and fallen down the stairs after, because that’s where I found him, banged up and bleeding and screaming his head off before he passed out. They were fine. Something  _ could _ have happened. But it didn’t. And that’s what you need to focus on, Frank. The kids are okay. Lili is safe. What we need to do from here to make them safer, we do that. But you can’t hover on the might-have-beens, or you’ll never be able to function again. Okay?”

“Okay.” Frank whispered, wiping at his eyes. “Okay.”

Max patted his fist until he relaxed it, and then stood up. “All right, mister. We’ve done all we can today. You think you can hug your wife and the kids and tell them to sleep? Think you’ll be able to sleep tonight?”

“Will you still be here in the morning?” Frank asked him shakily.

Max nodded once. “I have nowhere else to be that’s more important than right here.”

“Okay.” Frank breathed, and gave him another handshake before heading up the stairs.

 

He passed the study first, looking at the unfinished puzzle of kittens and balls of yarn still sitting on his desk. It made him smile, Lili had said that they’d been working on it all morning until - 

Frank walked across the hall to Gwen’s bedroom and looked inside, expecting to see the kids huddled up together. Lili had given up trying to keep them apart after yesterday, and after today he expected he’d find them side by side. They’d hardly left each other’s sight, or stopped holding hands and that teddy bear of Ben’s since. He found her bedroom empty and the lights off, and was worried for a little bit until he heard Lili’s voice down the hall from the master bedroom.

To his surprise and relief, he found Lili, wearing a sleeping shirt and some pajama bottoms, helping Gwen to put on her own. Ben was lying on their bed already in his Kangaroo Kommando pajamas, holding his stuffed bear tight. Lili looked up just as she finished lifting Gwen’s hair out from the collar of the soft blue cotton shirt and gave him a tight smile.

“The kids asked if they could stay with us tonight. I didn’t want to say no.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah. I - I think that’s okay too.” He went over and picked up Gwen, hugging her tightly. “Eskimo kiss?” He asked, and Gwen didn’t waste any time in rubbing her nose against his. She giggled after, which put him even more at ease, and he looked over to Ben. “How about you, sport? Want one?”

“Ewwww, noo.” Ben made a face and curled in around the bear, getting a laugh out of Lili as she swept over and took Gwen from him before giving Frank an eskimo kiss of her own.

“Go get changed, dear. I’ll keep an eye on the little ones until you’re done.” Frank gave her a nod and grabbed his own nightclothes and stepped into the bathroom, working quickly.

It didn’t take him long to get changed for bed, and he dumped his clothes in the hamper before coming back out with three small paper cups of water, one for each of the kids and the third for Lili. They all took them and drank them eagerly, and he tossed the empty cups into the wastebasket by his nightstand before turning the lights off. Only the faint glow of Gwen’s blue-green nightlight, recently brought in from her bedroom, gave the room any light.

The kids were still shivering a little, but they were doing better than they had been when he’d first seen them. After a day spent with not only himself and Lili to comfort them, but their grandfather around as well, they were calmer. They’d just refused to stay apart. Or to let go of the bear that they still both had a hand on.

“Are you two sure you want the bear here?” Frank asked them. He took up one side and Lili took the other, and they kept the kids between them. An extra pillow was all it had taken to get the two comfy. 

“Furry Freddy saved us.” Ben told him stubbornly. “He’s  _ gotta _ stay.”

“He did, huh?” Frank said, looking over Ben’s head to Lili who smiled and shrugged very gently.

“That’s what they told me.” She answered him. “Does it bother you?”

“No. Not really.” Frank surrendered to the wide-eyed pleading looks that the kids gave him, and sighed when Ben cheered and held up ‘Furry Freddy’ over his head, making Gwen giggle when he wiggled the bear’s arms like it was dancing. Then she pulled it back down and took it from Ben, snuggling it against her chest before she rolled over and lay her head down on top of her cousin’s chest.

As the two closed their eyes and finally stopped wiggling, Frank couldn’t stop himself from reaching down and tracing the hair on top of Ben’s head, or from touching Gwen’s little arm. He did it to remind himself that they were both here, that they weren’t hurt, and he wasn’t at all surprised when Lili did the same and their hands bumped.

“So. The bear saved them.” He yawned quietly, looking into her red but finally sleepy eyes. “Max said he’s going to stick around for a while. He has some old friends and he offered to help replace the broken window.”

“If he wants to help, he’s welcome to.” Lili blinked. “How did Sandy and Carl take the news?”

“A step short of coming home early until I told them Max was here and keeping an eye on things. That calmed my brother down. But Sandy took the phone from him and told me that we’re welcome to stay at their place while they’re gone, until...until things get fixed up here.”

“Knowing your father, that won’t be long at all.” Lili hummed. “But I think it might be good for us to get them away from here. For a while, at least.” She didn’t say that she was as badly shaken up by it all as he was, but then, she didn’t have to. Frank knew his wife’s tells. “Do you suppose we could take them to visit my parents?”

Frank thought about it. “If you really want to, sure. But we had the Fourth of July trip planned already.”

“You’re right.” Lili sighed. “And it’ll be a little easier on Morfar and Mormor if little Ben’s not around. He’s going to give  _ me _ gray hairs. He’d make my far’s hair fall right out.”

Frank laughed at that, and Gwen shifted and mumbled softly with a frown, but settled once he stilled his voice. Frank watched as Lili stroked their daughter’s hair, reaching over Ben’s head to do so, and the thick lump in his throat came back.

The most important things in the world to him were all here beside him. “I love you.” He told Lili, a little desperately, but honestly. She paused and looked at him in the dim light, and her face softened. 

“We’re okay. I love you too, and we’re all okay.” He hummed one last time and closed his eyes, taking his wife’s hand and giving it a squeeze before resting their arms over the kids huddled up under the sheets and the comforter. Maybe he’d believe that himself tomorrow.

Some time later, he felt a soft touch brush against his arm, like someone was patting it consolingly. He muzzily blinked his eyes open, wondering which one of the kids had thought to do that, and found himself confused when only Furry Freddy’s tiny little felt paw could be seen above the covers, resting on the bed next to his arm.

_ Furry Freddy saved us, _ Ben had said. Frank blinked again, remembering how his wife had called him in a panic about flashing lights once a year or so ago, how she’d imagined seeing this same stuffed bear floating in the air around all the glowing sparks.

He watched the stuffed bear, hugged to death by Gwen, not moving at all aside from when it shifted with her breathing. Slowly, he closed his eyes again. A bear that moved. A bear that saved the kids. It was ridiculous. A story that the kids told themselves to get over the frightening memory of this morning. Just stories and active imaginations. Stuffed bears didn’t do things like that. 

Reassured, Frank Tennyson breathed out once more and fell asleep, listening to the sound of his wife and his daughter and his nephew quietly sleeping away. His dreams stayed untroubled by nightmares, real or imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> We make no excuses. We make no apologies. We will go down with this Ship.  
> Updates will be infrequent, and will generally occur when we either need a hug or something so cute that it makes our usual story-based drama less soul-shattering. And we'll be trading off chapters, because of Reasons.
> 
> -Erico


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